July 9, 2024
Withington has marked its special 20-year partnership in The Gambia with a series of commemorative anniversary events, which has seen more than £20,000 raised over the past few months.
This takes total donations since our first school trip to The Gambia in 2004, to nearly £150,000. Our contributions have funded a number of transformational education and community projects including a nursery school, now recognised nationally as a Centre of Excellence; an award-winning youth enterprise programme; and more recently, much-needed wetland and forest restoration programmes.
Fundraising for this year’s visit in December has included ‘20 minutes for 20 years’ with sponsored sports-field laps on Citizenship Day, penalty shoot-outs in a popular ‘Goals for the Gambia’ event, a non-uniform day as well as regular stalls selling items such as colourful trousers, flowers and sweets, and a visit to Cocogreen, who kindly donated towards our work in The Gambia.
The event finale was a sell-out ‘Great Gambia Get-Together’ evening, held at school on Tuesday 2nd July – ‘WGS Gambia Day’. Around 100 guests, including alumnae who had joined past trips, enjoyed a sit-down meal with tasty Gambian dishes followed by a medley of music courtesy of a small number of our talented singers and musicians; The Rat Pack made up of four staff members; and a local African drumming band, accompanied by three dancers who put on wonderful displays of Gambian dancing.
Withington’s ‘WithGambia’ partnership has been led by WGS Teacher of Geography, Ms Kaeren Browning from the start and annually she accompanies a group of Year 12 students on a trip to The Gambia. Throughout the 20 years, Ms Browning has worked with project managers on the ground to identify suitable community projects in need of financial support.
As we celebrate our 20th WithGambia anniversary, Withington’s work in Illiassa continues. This year’s funding will pay for further work to the Mama Tamba Nursery with a perimeter fence being erected around the school and ancillary buildings, as well as a new roof and floor for the kitchen area, plus equipment upgrades. A pond that will benefit the local community is in the process of being built – and Withington’s contributions will also include a water-filtration oxygen machine and fish stocks to add an additional source of protein to local diets.
Fundraising activities included a sponsored ‘Goals for Gambia’ event
This year’s Gambia team visited Cocogreen to learn about sustainable substrates
Student and staff musicians performed at the ‘Great Gambia Get-Together’
A raffle was held to raise further funds
The Gambia team 2022 supported the event
A local African drumming band kept guests entertained
Gambian dancing soon had everyone to their feet!
