Badges are presented

The badges we sent to The Gambia have been presented to the local guide unit. The presentation was made on our behalf by Kathryn from Silksworth guides in Sunderland who was there doing some project work.

The guides loved their new badges - now they just have to learn to sew them on!

Team Building

We had our 2nd team meeting on Saturday 22nd November - which happens to be both Mandy and Eleanor H's birthdays!  We spent some more time getting to know each other and doing some team building activities. Plus we talked about which peer education topics we might like to cover and which cultural / tourist things we'd like to do.

Badges for Gunjur Girl Guides

The badges we've had made for the Gunjur Girl Guides are now safely in the hands of Jo Austin-Preece from the Gunjur Project, to give to the girls.

We really hope they love them! It will help them build their identity a bit more on their lovely new uniforms we bought them.

We will get photos of the girls with their new badges as soon as we can. 

1st Briefing

We've had our first briefing for Team Gambia 2015!

Our group is made up of 26 members of Girlguiding, mainly from Cheshire Forest, with some from Wirral and Cheshire Border too.

We were very lucky to be joined at our 1st briefing meeting by Alagi Bojang, who is Chairman of the Gunjur Project Association. He's in the UK for a visit at the moment. He spent time talking about potential project options and what they would mean to the local community. He also taught us some Mandinka, the local language.

We spent some time learning who each of the team members were and we voted on which projects we'd like to work on next year.  These include: Peer education sessions with the local Guides and Scouts, running health awareness workshops, raising money for the local community to build a community centre with a communal kitchen.

The team is already enthused and we're looking forward to going to The Gambia next April!

Stethoscope donation

We are really grateful to Dr Rasha from Leighton hospital in Crewe for donating a Littmann 2 classic stethoscope - this will be really well used and appreciated in Gunjur.

Disaster!

We were really sad to hear that a big storm blew the roof off the medical post in Kajabang, where we painted our murals.

This is particularly bad news as the rainy season is about to start.

The race is now on to get a new roof built before the rains come. Work has already started with all of the village coming together.

They urgently need funds to finance this. If you can donate anything, no matter how small, please email us gambia@cheshireforest.org.uk

Bras & Glasses Everywhere!

We've been busy collecting bras & glasses to send to The Gambia. In a short space of time we collected quite a stash!

Sue C & Rach A met last weekend with the help of Sue T and sorted through them all, choosing the best ones to send.

We ended up with 2 large boxes, which have been despatched to our friends 'Project Gambia' in Sunderland. They are going to add it to a container they're sending out next month.

We will still collect prescription glasses if anyone wants to donate them, especially children's ones.

We're going again!

We loved our experience in The Gambia so much in 2014 that we've decided to go again in 2015! Many of the original team are going again, with a few new members added in. We are already very excited!