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Joyce returned to Hastings with a mission, and her
mission was to raise money to build a nursery school.
Ismailla lived in a large compound so there was plenty
of room for some classrooms.
Joyce worked tirelessly raising funds and eventually
three classrooms were built and the school was opened,
and named, very appropriately, Joyces International
Nursery School.
Almost five years ago, Sharon Jervis, went on holiday
to Gambia and was fortunate enough to meet Joyce,
who was paying her annual trip to the school.
Sharon was as inspired by the enthusiasm of Ismailla,
the plight of the children, and the poverty surrounding
them as Joyce had been a number of years earlier.
Sharon returned fired with energy and plans on how
to raise money for the school and this energy and
determination saw the birth of The Gambian Childrens
Fund.
The charity received official charitable status, a
sponsorship programme was started and fund raising
events planned, held and supported by many.
We had many plans for the school, which still had
only three classrooms. In the first year we were able
to raise enough money to build a kitchen block and a
toilet block.
In a country living in abject poverty, food and nourishment is not always available to families, we
wanted to make sure that every one of the children
received a simple, but nourishing meal every deal.
So a kitchen was essential.
Gambian families cook outside on an open fire, but
with 400 children at the school, that was not a risk
we were prepared to take.
The kitchen is now used daily by two cooks who boil
huge great pans of rice and a huge pan of peanut
sauce with vegetables and fish.
The children stand in an orderly queue to wash their
little hands then they are each given a plate of food..
The toilet block improves the sanitary conditions 100%
as prior to the toilets being built, the children used a
free standing wall.
This served as nothing more than a vanity screen, now
there are separate toilets for the girls, the boys and the
staff.
Next on the dream list was to provide clean water to
the school. The well in the compound could only be
used for cooking and washing not drinking.
Staff would spend hours dropping a bucket into the
seemingly bottomless well and hauling it up again.
This went on for hours until they had enough buckets
of water to cook the food.
We were able to get a clean water supply from the
village tap. A standpipe is now in the compound which
enables children to drink as much clean water as they
like during the day.
The cooks no longer have to spend hours hauling
buckets of water up from the centre of the earth.
The Gambian Childrens Fund had achieved so much.
The school became more and more popular and the
number of children registering at the school meant
that each of the classrooms had more than 100 children in
them.
Discipline was never a problem, Gambian children are
an absolute delight and are brought up with a deep
respect for their elders, but however well behaved, it
was an impossible task for one teacher to teach 100
children at a time.
We needed more classrooms. The fundraising started
again with ernest, annual balls, raffles, gift trees,
auctions, appeals on local radio, after dinner speeches.
Everything and anything to raise awareness of the
charity and to raise money.
Once again, thanks to the support of kind hearted
people, we were able to raise enough money in 2007/08
to build three new classrooms and an office for the
headteacher.
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