How you can get involved
How you can get involved
Help support Cycle For Gambia to reach their target of £60,000 to fund a borehole and water storage tank for a Gambian village.
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Make an enormous difference to someone's life. Organise your own Twin Communities event.
Sometimes the power of emotions can lead to great and wonderful things. And that’s exactly what happened more>>
Last year I set out to find an organisation that I felt I could rely on to pass on 100% of my donation to support more>>
I visited Bafaluto village in October 2008 to see the results of PING’s project there which includes a borehole more>>
In March I travelled to the Gambia to meet Brian and Pamela of PING Charity and see for myself how more>>
At the end of 2008, I chose to support PING in a proposed bee-
Sunil Mistry of Twin Communities, Dave Metcalf, owner of Paphos’ Spa Tonic and cyclist Lesley Christopheros are more>>
In March I travelled to the Gambia to meet Brian and Pamela of PING Charity and see
for myself how their projects are progressing.
It was wonderful to see so much positivity
in action, particularly in the village of Njongon. Here, the market garden which
PING had funded is doing exceptionally well already, with all the plots (which have
been allocated to the families of the village) filled with thriving vegetable produce
for the families, and also to be sold for income.
In Njongon I also saw some of the
young men of the village receiving training on the use of the new brick-
I was delighted to see some of the new beehives in situ, and a few of them already
colonised, before any formal training has even begun (the first training session
was due to take place at the end of March).
For me, the overriding outcome of my
visit has been that it proved to me how very effective and worthwhile direct involvement
with communities in the developing world can be for all concerned.
Amongst the countless
benefits I witnessed, I saw that a donation of just a few pounds can help the whole
community immediately. For example, it can buy buckets and ropes (to pull water up
from the well) to water the family vegetable plots, and seeds for planting the next
harvest. This provides food for the families working the plots, as well as a contribution
to the village fund (as each family also grows a crop for the village to market.
The fund covers costs such as training and maintenance of the water tank/pump, etc).
I
also discovered that a donation of just £70 could pay a child's school fees for a
year. I met Fatou, a delightful, bright and enthusiastic 11 year old girl who works
each day from 6am, selling fruit and water at a busy road junction in town. She works
before school to fund her education. Her ambition is to be a doctor. Covering her
school fees means that Fatou can have more time and energy for her studies and helping
her family. It will enable her to break the cycle of poverty in her family in years
to come.
I saw that a donation of a few hundred pounds was enough to provide a village
with 20 beehives and equipment such as protective suits and gloves. This will provide
an income for 4 beekeepers, as well as contributing to the village fund and a seperate
fund which will support further beekeeping projects in other villages.
A donation
of just a few pounds given directly to the community can make such an immediate and
real difference to the lives of the recipients and their future.
Simple, inexpensive projects such as these will leave the community in a position
of self-
Maya's visit to The Gambia
Page last updated 9th April 2009 18:04GMT
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