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Project Jamwelly Nursery- en Primary school
Clich here for Dutch version
1. Education for the children of Jamwelly:
Last year (2020) our foundation received a call for emergency help from the village of Jamwelly in the Gambia. Because of the lack of schools and the large distance between the village and schools in neighbouring villages, a lot of children go without basic education.
A few years ago, the alkalo together with the village committee took the initiative to start their own nursery and primary school.
The schoolyear of 2020-2021 has seen the school with two nursery classrooms and two primary classrooms. However, these four classrooms do not fit all the children and two are much too small.
The community of Jamwelly is in destitute poverty and it lacks the funds to accommodate the children themselves. The government in the Gambia has also not come forward with funds.
Without additional accommodation the schools progress is stagnating in such a way that children cannot continue schooling after the Primary-2 level, which means the children will have stop receiving education altogether.
The same crippling poverty that has afflicted their parents and grandparents is threatening to afflict the children of Jamwelly. Without education, most of these children will not receive a fair shake at life.
Our foundation, Education for The Gambia, would like to help the school realize more accommodation, but is still without all the necessary funds and means to do so.
2. The village of Jamwelly:
Jamwelly is a village like so many others in the Gambia, with shanty housing behind fences of rusted corrugated sheets, sand roads full of holes and most of all lots of children.
The village is inhabited by about 2,500 people and more than half of them are below the age of 15. The villagers live off small scale agriculture, petty trade and occasional day labor jobs.
Not many of the villagers have steady jobs or fixed incomes.
The people are destitute. Poverty is passed on from generation to generation and it seems impossible for the younger generation to escape their circumstances.
The lack of education and development is a key cause underlying poverty.
Most elders have never gone to school and by lack of school facilities most kids do not go to school either. Schools in other villages are too remote, besides, many of them wouldn’t be able to accommodate kids from outside their own communities.
The alkalo (mayor) of the village and the village committee took the initiative to start realizing school facilities in the village about six years ago.
3. The school in Jamwelly:
The alkalo donated a piece of land of about 5,400 square meters to the school.
On the schoolground are now two buildings in disrepair.
One small building with two classrooms of about 25 square meters, and a larger building with two
classrooms of about 40 square meters now sit on the land. The school grounds also feature a small building with toilets, which is far from sufficient and is in serious disrepair.
These accommodations have been realized with lots of input from the community of Jamwelly, as well as financial help from tourists and other small donors.
Michelle Gomez, the school’s principal, named the school “Hope Academic Center”.
The schoolyear of 2020-2021 sees Hope Academic Center with two Nursery classes and two Primary classes (the two lowest grade classes) and a total of about 150 children.
But the school has to grow in the coming years to a fully equipped school with six Primary grade classes and classrooms for each grade class. Even this schoolyear, the need for extra classrooms is urgent.
Which developments are necessary for the school?
- Eight new classrooms
- Office space, storage space and a teachers lounge.
- Proper toilets
- Fencing around the school
Additionally, it’s important the school has its own water supply. Right now, the school only has access to a public tap and has to use jerry cans to transport water from the tap to the school.
4. The two main challenges for the school:
The two main challenges for Hope Academic Center in Jamwelly are:
- Realizing enough accommodation for the school.
- Becoming self-sufficient so that after initial help the school can run on its own with help from the community.
Being self-sufficient means that the school receives enough funds for paying teachers’ salaries and pay for other costs the school incurs. Also important is that the schools’ teachers earn a living wage so that they can fully dedicate their time and attention to the school, which is essential to providing quality education.
With that in mind we think it’s sensible to start 2 simultaneous projects for the school, one being a project to realize additional accommodation and to build new classrooms, and two, supporting the school on the road to self-sufficiency.
5. Project for school accomodation:
For the accommodations mentioned under point 3 we estimate a cost of about 86.500 euro.
Probably we’re not able to raise this amount all at once, so we are looking at a phased approach.
Because of the urgency involved in providing more classrooms, we will start with the construction of a new school building with four additional classrooms. After that, a new sanitary facility will be built with separate toilers for girls, boys, female teachers and male teachers.
As soon as sufficient funds become available after that, a second building will be constructed with again 4 new classrooms, office and storage space, and a teachers’ lounge.
Because of the need for water to mix cement, prodiving a borehole on school grounds is a priority before the construction of the first new building.
In parallel to the aforementioned activities, we can work on fencing the school grounds. Fencing is important for the safety of the children and that of the school’s accommodation.
In addition, the biggest of the two buildings currently in use will be renovated and repurposed as a library and a space for special classes and activities.
6. Project of running the school and self-sufficiency
In the coming five years the school needs on average 12.200 euro per year to stay in operation.
The parents need to contribute every year about 50 euro per child.
At this moment (2021) not all parents are able to contribute this full amount.
So our foundation plans to support parents these first five years a bit with paying these schoolfees so they can get used to these costs.
However in five years the school has to operate without contributions of the foundation.
When after these five years still (not all) parents can pay for the full school fees the community must supplement the school fees.
During the five year period the foundation will support the community with setting up businesses that can generate money for the school.
7. Are you prepared to help realize this school for the children of Jamwelly?
You can help Hope Academic Center with:
- A donation for creating the school facilities
- Contributions towards the operational costs for the school and for becoming self-reliant
It would be very helpful if there were a number of people who would like to contribute a fixed amount (eg 100 euros, but other amounts are of course also welcome) annually for five years.
With an agreement "Recurring Payment" these contributions are fully tax deductabele.
In that case you can download the PDF form "agreement for periodical donation" from the homepage of our website.
You can fill in the fields in the PDF file and then send the signed form to our foundation.
Our foundation signs the agreement and returns the signed agreement.
Using the links below you can watch an introductory video about the school:
Click here for the video with Dutch subtitles
Click here for the video with English subtitles.
the logo of the school
children of Jamwelly
the school site of Hope Academic Centre
The school site seen from the other side
the largest school building
the small school building
classroom in the small school building
school furniture
playground
left at the background the small toilet building
the three toilets of the school with left a small storage space
the school garden
children in the school garden
teacher Ellen
childrfen in the classroom
Michelle the head of the school