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Visitors and volunteers to Farato 2024

Tony and Karen Di Marco, the founders of SchoolGambia, had two objectives for the last weeks of 2024:

  1. to continue the refurbishment of the original Nursery School

  2. to roll out the Gambian First Reader reading scheme to other schools


In 2000 the original Nursery School, of two classrooms, was bult by villagers. Over the next few years it expanded to four classrooms, two offices, a storeroom big enough to unload a 20' container and a room for solar batteries. By 2024 it needed a new roof, new roof trusses, new walls, new floors, new blackboards, cupboards, electricity and ceilings. The first stages were complete in April and in November Tony fitted the electricity cables whilst local carpenters fitted the ceilings. All that is needed now is to paint the entire building.

In 2018 we published the first three books (our 17) of our own reading scheme, written by Karen Di Marco, Anna Lee Davey (a primary school teacher in Kent) and Darbonding (a Primary teacher in Yalding School Farato). Designed to follow the Gambian government policy of using phonics and featuring Gambian children doing Gambian things, it is now complete and has proved popular with pupils and helped most of them to become fluent and independent readers. It has taken long hard work to train our teachers to use it, but we have been successful and now we want to share our fortune with other schools in the area and gradually roll it out through the Ministry of Education. In November we organised a day long workshop for two schools and the area Cluster monitor which was very successful. We have appointed a team drawn from our own staff to run a course of workshops for a year. They will also visit the two participating schools and support their development.



The original Nursery School
The original Nursery School

Inside an original classroom
Inside an original classroom


Off come the solar panels and the roof
Off come the solar panels and the roof

A sample of Gambian First Readers
A sample of Gambian First Readers


Since 2007 Sir Roger Manwood's School in Sandwich, Kent have been sending a team of twelve students and two teachers to work and camp in the Yalding school; but in. March 2020 the team were shattered when lockdown cancelled their trip one week before they were due to depart. It has taken four years to recreate a team and triumphantly the Team '24 landed and set to teaching and enjoying village life.


SIR ROGER MANWOOD STUDENTS RETURN AFTER FIVE YEARS - April 2024









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SchoolGambia,

The Cherry Patch

Linton Hill, Linton  Kent, ME17 4AP

+44 1622 745298​​​

schoolgambiauk@gmail.com

Registered Charity Number 1096152

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