Newsletter Q2 2014, Les Amis de Gambie

With this 23rd newsletter, we would like to give you an overview of Les Amis de Gambie’s activities and achievements in the past 3 months.

School bus has arrived

March 31st of this year was a joyous day for the or-phanage because the school bus, which we were able to purchase with the help of many kind spon-sors and friends, arrived in Gambia. Hennie and Joop, both Dutch, drove the bus from the Netherlands to Gambia in exactly one month, without encountering any problems. All 22 children that are going back to school in September can now be taken from the or-phanage to school and back in one single school bus.

A day trip

As of January, the orphanage has been open for 5 years. A good reason to celebrate! Due to the arrival of our three new children Fatou, Sainey, and Mark, we were very busy at the end of last year, but now the time was finally right for the children and their nursing ‘mothers’ to go on a day trip. We consider it extremely important for the children’s development to take them on outings and show them the beautiful things their country has to offer; after all, there is life outside the orphanage! After some deliberation we decided to go boating through the mangroves. The children caught fish the-re, which they and the ‘mothers’ cooked for dinner after they returned. All in all it was a memorable day!

Our new project: Mosquito screens against malaria

The number of children in the orphanage is still gro-wing, since there is a capacity for 30 to 40 children. You can imagine that our building is quite intensively used.

When it was built (from 2005 to 2009) we placed wooden mosquito screens on each of the windows of the orphanage and the small outbuilding where the oldest child (a 13 year-old boy) has his room. The office was built later, and no mosquito screens have been placed there as of yet.Considering the limited budget, we opted for woo-den screens. Unlike now, aluminium screens were not available in Gambia at the time. Despite our ef-forts to paint the screen frames after the rainy sea-son almost every year (June to October with almost 100% humidity) we have lost our battle with the ele-ments, and the frames are now in need of replace-ment.

Malaria is the largest public health problem in Gam-bia. Anyone can catch it. Of all the children and preg-nant women who die in hospital, 40% die of malaria-related causes. Mosquito screens are very important; they offer protection against mosquitoes, flies, and other insects, and the diseases they carry.

The number of mosquito screens we need is: 19 window screens (1 by 1 metre)3 door screens (1 by 2 metres)

The advantages of aluminium screens over wooden screens are: 1. Aluminium is stronger than wood2. Aluminium is maintenance-free3. Aluminium can withstand severe weather con-

ditions4. Aluminium is 100% recyclable 5. Aluminium is not sensitive to humidity, rot, or

insects, and does not warp6. Aluminium has a high strength to weight ratio

and can be shaped easily

The total cost for 22 aluminium screens is EUR 4500 -. This substantial amount will help us protect our children and their carers from malaria for at least 10 years. Maarten Wassenberg, a Dutch contractor who has lived and worked in Gambia for five years, has many years of experience with similar projects. That is why we would like to commission him for this project, along with a local company, which can produce the

screens on site. This way, we will also create employ-ment opportunities in Gambia. Production of the screens can start as soon as the required funds ar-rive.

Because it is a large amount of money and we do not want to risk anything going wrong, we have asked Maarten to produce 2 sam-ple screens (see picture). We have discussed the re-sults and made a number of minor adjustments. We are now ready to proceed as soon as the required funds are raised.

If you would like to make a donation to support our project ‘Mosquito screens against malaria’, we would really appreci-ate your help!

You can do this by depositing your contribution to bank account number: IBAN LU42 0030 6563 9934 0000 (BGL-BNP PA-RIBAS) held in the name of the charity Les Amis de Gambie and quoting the reference ‘Mosquito screens against malaria’.

What we use every month

As you have read above, our pantry has new shelves. This pantry (and the new freezer) houses our daily food and drinks. People are often not aware of the sheer amount of groceries our orphanage uses in one month. Of course we are feeding the 25 children, but the staff are also included. This is common in Gambia, and it strengthens the children’s sense of family.

We’d like to give you an idea of what we need every month: • 150 kilos of rice • 750 bread rolls • Aside from this we need many kilos of chicken,

meat and vegetables to complete our meals. Every month, the two cooks prepare 3000 meals (that’s 100 meals a day!)

• 360 juice boxes and 360 single-serve packets of biscuits for the children to take to school every day.

• Every month, we wash 840 kilos of clothing, bed-ding, towels, etc.

• Our very own school bus travels 1600 kilometres a month, transporting the children to school and back.

Sponsors

Les Amis de Gambie cannot do without your support. We are incredibly enthusiastic and ambitious, but enthusi-asm and ambition alone will not get us where we want to go. Luckily, these past few months have seen another number of beautiful initiatives from people who care about our mission. Remarkable actions, taken by remarka-ble people!

Aside from the telecommunications company Comi-um and the women’s organisation Li Wajhillah, the organisation has found a third sponsor in Gambia: the world’s largest security company G4S (previously Group 4 Securicor). The orphanage has had a G4S guard for a number of years, and this company also installed our camera and time registration system.

Since last month, G4S is sponsoring 100 kilos of rice and one gas cylinder every month. Our heartfelt thanks go out to G4S for their support!

Thanks to our loyal sponsor Clearstream Luxem-bourg, we were able to buy a new freezer. We al-ready had a refrigerator, but having a freezer allows us to buy in bulk (and save money!). The new freezer also allows us to freeze the vegetables we produce in our garden, so that we can use fresh vegetables during the rainy season.

The Gambian women’s organisation Li Wajhillah has donated money to the orphanage for the second time. With this money, we have decided to buy 17.5 kilos of vegetables, 15 frozen chickens and 7.5 kilos of minced meat (for spaghetti).

Unfortunately, our vice president Gert-Jan Bevers is still not in the best of health after his bypass sur-gery at the end of 2012. At the time of writing, his condition is being thoroughly evaluated at a hospital in Luxembourg. Our handyman Ebrima has been se-riously ill for a number of months as well.

That is why Pascal and his wife Pascale’s help came in extra handy, when they visited from Luxembourg with their sons Sven and Maxime to help out in Gam-bia for a week. The assistance offered by Jean and Mark from Luxembourg was also extremely welcome. During their stay they built storage shelves for the pantry. Thanks to them, we no longer have to store food on the floor. They also painted, replaced leaking faucets, installed two computers for the children and placed new security cameras in the dining room and the hallways of the orphanage.

The 35-member youth club (‘Club des Jeunes’) from the villages Hamiville and Wincrange in the North of Luxembourg surprised us with a generous cheque!

On the 23rd of April this year, members of Les Amis de Gambie were invited by Jang Majerus, president of the ‘Lions Grand-Duché Ardennes, to give a pre-sentation to their club in Luxembourg. This Lions Club has supported the organisation since 2012 and has pledged to continue their support until the end of 2018! It was a fun night, at which even their governor, Mister Bert Bouwmans, was present.

On the 19th of April this year, Marieke and Martin from Oss, the Netherlands, celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary. Instead of gifts, they asked their guests for money and raised a significant amount for Les Amis de Gambie. What a great initiative!

Dutch singer and presenter Sandra Reemer recent-ly closed down her own Foundation (the Sandra Reemer Foundation). Two years ago, Sandra visited our orphanage and was so impressed that she has now sent us a wonderful donation.

Thanks to the two second hand computers donated by our dear friends Mia, Theo, Ronald, and Leo from the Netherlands, the oldest children in the orpha-nage can now learn to work with computers. Like most children, Gambian children are fascinated by computers and eager to learn how to work with them. The oldest children are now taking ICT clas-ses at school too. When he was in Gambia, our vice president Gert-Jan Bevers taught the older children about computers.

Later in life, knowledge of computers will make the children eligible for jobs they would not otherwise have access to.

Shell project not yet implemented

In our previous newsletter, we asked for contribu-tions to new shells to cover the compound grounds. We intended to put the new layer of shells in place before the rainy season (June).

When we raised our target amount, thanks in part to your generous contribution, we were very happy and wanted to start the project straight away in March. However, when we arrived in The Gambia in March we were astonished to learn that there were no seashells for sale. We contacted suppliers every day, and went to

visit the seashell vending sites ourselves. But alas, there were no seashells… we had never seen this before. The only thing we were told is that the seashells had to come from Senegal and that there were other customers waiting to receive them as well. For us as Europeans, this was an incomprehensible and frus-trating situation. Time and again we realise that our Western way of working and thinking is very diffe-rent to the Gambian way. Unfortunately, we will have to be patient. When we get back to The Gambia at the beginning of June, we will start work on the sea-shell project immediately. Of course we will keep you informed of our progress.

Allow us to introduce:Claudia Diallo

“My name is Claudia Diallo. I am 55 and a German na-tional.I have been living in The Gambia for five years, and for two years have been helping out on a voluntary basis at Sinchu Orphanage. I am a trained nurse, and also hold a specialist nursing qualification in psychiatric and psychological care.

I also completed two further university courses in nursing education and social management. Professionally, alongside my practical work with both adults and children with psychological problems and illness, I have been involved in teaching and training nurses, physiotherapists, social workers and educa-tors, mainly at various university medical schools.For 15 years I was involved in project management, working for the Red Cross in practically every country in Western Europe.

I have been married to my husband, who is from Se-negal, for 28 years. I have a foster son and an adop-ted son, both from Africa, who are now 29 and 33 and live in the USA and Switzerland.

I got to know about the orphanage in Sinchu by chan-ce after meeting Sia Jongeneel.

Because I was already familiar with orphanages in va-rious countries across Europe, Africa and Asia, I was initially very sceptical and reluctant to get involved. This made my experience of Sinchu Orphanage a very pleasant surprise.This orphanage does not compare to anything I have previously experienced. This orphanage in Africa is in line with European standards, even surpassing them in some areas!

The children are well fed with fresh fruit and vegeta-bles, and meat and fish provided every day. They are well looked after and clean, living in attractive premi-ses that are designed for children.

These children are guaranteed the highest level of medical care, and access to individual schooling at the highest possible level. The technical equipment, particularly in terms of security (sadly necessary) far exceeds western European standards.

The children grow up in a psychosocial environment that caters for their individual needs and personality.The happy way in which the children interact with one another and play means that it is often not ob-vious to the outsider that they have faced hardship in the past. Some of the children have experienced unimagina-ble suffering and the levels of trauma that they have gone through vary greatly. This is why the people who work in Sinchu Orpha-nage deserve the utmost respect. I have already experienced several cases of children coming to the orphanage after a difficult experience and gradually opening up and settling in to their new home.

Copyright © 2014 Les Amis de Gambie, all rights reserved

The current newsletter has still been created in paper form. If you have an email address, please let us know so that we can register you to receive the digital newsletter. This will be available in French, Dutch and English. Please email us at the following address: info@lesamisdegambie.com

If you want to support our work, please make a contribution to our account number:

BGL BNP Paribas LuxembourgIBAN : LU 42 0030 6563 9934 0000BIC/SWIFT: BGLLLULLIn the name of ASBL « Les Amis de Gambie »

Les Amis de Gambie53 Bd Grande-Duchesse CharlotteL-1331 LuxembourgLuxembourg

www.lesamisdegambie.cominfo@lesamisdegambie.com

Tout don en faveur de l’ASBL « Les Amis de Gambie » est maintenant fiscalement déductible dans les limites fixées par l’article 109, alinéa 1, no.3 de la loi

concernant l’impôt sur le revenu. Toute personne (société ou particulier) peut déduire de son revenu imposable la somme des dons envers des établissements d’utilité publique, si ce cumul des dons est au moins égal à 120 € par année d’imposition et dans la limite de 250.000 € ou 10% du revenu imposable.

Often, they also change on the outside too, quickly putting on weight and growing amazingly fast at the beginning, so that you would hardly recognise them. Ideally, what happens is that withdrawn and overcau-tious children, but also stressed, troubled and tearful children, can leave behind their previous patterns of behaviour and enjoy living in a relaxed, happy and stress-free environment.

This is where the staff at the orphanage are doing an exceptional job. They work tirelessly night and day, with love, helping children whose behaviour is not always easy to deal with (think of defiance, puberty, panic attacks, experience of trauma etc.).

The “aunties and uncles” at the orphanage devote all of their efforts to their work with the children. As well as giving them loving care, they make sure they

are well looked after while never neglecting the need for the children to play and have fun. The atmosphere at Sinchu Orphanage is a happy one, with lots of laughter, and I am pleased and proud to be a part of it!

My particular thanks go to Sia Jongeneel and Gert Jan Bevers, who have dedicated their lives to these children. It is not possible to comprehend what they have achieved. No words can describe their work.

My heart-felt thanks also go to the sponsors. Thanks to them, these children have found a safe and peace-ful place to live, a home in which their individuality is nurtured and where they can simply enjoy their childhood. “

Claudia Diallo

Dear sponsors and friends, we gave you all a little catch up and can only hope we may still count on your support and enthusiasm in future. We thank all our sponsors for their generous donations.

Mark and Sainey enjoy a lovely bowl of ice cream.