Take Care Nursery School

Farato–Sotokoi–Daru Village,
West Gambia.

In November 2006 Ant & Karen Davis travelled to The Gambia on a holiday experience. They put together an itinerary which took them inland and away from the coastal region where the majority of the large hotels are placed. During their travels in The Gambia they encountered a subsistence level of the local population that was considerably below that which they had expected. The people of The Gambia are very friendly, welcoming and generous despite the shortages that exist. They work together within their communities and there is a strong community spirit. Whilst staying in Bintang, which is in central Gambia, Ant & Karen met Bakary Kujabi who works as a teacher at the Lower Basic School in Bintang. Teachers in The Gambia teach wherever they are posted by the authorities, and although Bakary has been posted to Bintang for some years now, he actually lives in a village between Brikama and Serrekunda (in the west of The Gambia), about 45 miles away from his place of work. In The Gambia the roads are very poor, being little more than mud tracks in many areas, making travel difficult. This means that he has to work away from home all week, and return home for the weekends. However in his home village of Farato-Sotokoi-Daru he saw an urgent need for young children who were unable to attend a nursery and decided to set up a nursery school. All of this was done in consultation with the village committee who obtained some land for the school to become established and ‘take care’ of the young children. So the Take Care Nursery started in the village of Farato-Sotokoi-Daru in 2004. Since then it has expanded and currently has a role of 145 pupils (as at November 2006). There are three teachers, and Bakary provides guidance and supervision for them. The Gambia is a poor country and education is not compulsory until the age of 8 years. This means that there is no funding available from the government to support these children at school until they are 8 years old, and even then parents have to pay in order for them to attend school. The nursery school is entirely dependent upon donations for its survival. More often than not there is no money to pay the teachers’ salaries and they continue to work for no payment because they passionately believe that education is the way forward for these children. Indeed, the school’s motto is ‘The Greatest Way to Fight the Way out of Poverty is to provide Education’. There are numerous opportunities to improve the nursery and to improve the education of the children that attend.