 In
the UK, the Bob Powell Gambia Schools and Health Project
(a charity registered in Gambia) is run by Bob Powell, who
arranges fund raising events and collects medical and
educational equipment donated by companies or individuals.
Bob never turns anything down.
All equipment is stored in Bob garage
until there is enough to send over to Gambia (three or
four times a year). Minor Weir and Willis
collect everything, package it up onto pallets and
transport it (at a reduced rate) down to Gatwick Airport.
There, Redcoat Express put all the supplies into
containers, which are then shipped over to their
warehouses in the Gambia.
Once the supplies leave the UK, Bob
hands over responsibility for distribution to The Bob
Powell Gambia Schools and Health Project committee in
Gambia, a committee of three men which is chaired by
Sulayman Badji,
Deputy Director of the
Jammeh Foundation
(and also son of the Vice President of Gambia). The
committee receives applications for equipment from clinics
and hospitals, and they decide where best to send the
supplies Bob has sent over. All supplies are sent to
the places where they are needed the most. The
charity also gives financial assistance to individuals
(for much needed operations, school fees, etc.)
Everything is reported back to Bob, and
Bob flies over to the Gambia twice a year to meet with the
committee.
In the Gambia, the Bob Powell's Gambia
Schools and Health Project is run by a committee of three
men, chaired by
Sulayman Badjie,
Deputy Director of the
Jammeh Foundation
(and also son of the Vice President of Gambia). This
committee will receive applications from schools, teachers
and individuals for scholarships to fund the education of
children who would most benefit. Committee members will select those
children who show the most promise and visit their homes
to assess what type of funding they require:
- Children from poor families who
cannot afford to pay for their child to be educated will
receive a full scholarship to pay for everything (school
fees, educational equipment and uniform).
- Children from families that can
afford to pay for school fees only will be given funding
for education equipment (books, writing materials etc.)
and/or uniforms.
- Children who come from families that
can afford to pay for school equipment and uniforms only
will be given funding to pay for school fees.
 The
charity will pay fees direct to the school and receive
quarterly reports on the progress of the children being
sponsored (which will hopefully be posted on this
website). Obviously, the more funding available, the
more children the charity can sponsor. If you'd like
to donate, please see
details below.
The children will be educated in order
to assist their villages, which will greatly improve the
quality of living for the people of Gambia.
SCHOOL FEES BY CATEGORY
1
British Pound = 40.03179
Gambian Dalasi
1 Gambian Dalasi (GMD) = 0.02498 British Pound (GBP)
The charity will primarily use public
schools, but in some cases children of particular aptitude
may need private education ... this again will be assessed
by the charity committee based on school reports.
Nursery Schools
Public: free
Community based (halls in villages): D200-D1,000
Private: D500-D30,000 per annum
Primary Schools
Public: free, excluding uniforms, school materials and
travel
Private: D500-D30,000 per annum
Secondary Schools
Public: D1,000-D5,000 per annum
Private: D3,000-D30,000 per annum
Tertiary Schools
Public: D1,000 to D16,000 per annum
Private: D5,000 to D30,000 per annum
The charity will sponsor groups of
children and put them through their education from start
to finish. If you wish to personally sponsor an
individual child or school, the charity committee can help
you to identify a child or school in most need of
sponsorship and provide you with regular updates on their
progress - please
get in touch if this
is of interest to you.
Please remember that the Bob Powell's Gambia Schools and
Health Project does not take any administration
costs, every penny donated goes straight to the charity or
the scholarship - all charity work is funded and run by
volunteers who freely offer their time and skills.
What the
charity has done - at a glance
As
well as organising fund raising events and regularly
sending over medication and equipment (his garage is
always bursting at the seams with items to be shipped to
Gambia), Bob’s charity has achieved many things over the
years.
Paid for a water well to
be built at Brufut village.
Keeps the Brufut clinic
stocked with medical supplies.
Sent over uniforms,
football kits and boots for local schools.
Shipped over desperately
needed equipment, including hospital beds, bedside
cabinets, medical supplies, catering equipment, a heart
machine, examination tables, resuscitation units and
filing cabinets (all donated to the charity). The
charity committee in Gambia decides where best to send
these supplies (where they are needed the most).
Keeps clinics and
hospitals stocked up with medical supplies.
Supplied and installed
computers at St Josephs School and St Teresa’s School
(with volunteers Paul Hartwell and Liam Yardley).
Sent supplies and
equipment to the Gambian Ex Servicemen Legion (Bob
personally paid for one ex serviceman to have cataract
surgery).
Sent 40 reconditioned
computers to a school in Walsall after they lost their
star rating.
Organised, trained and
paid for lifeguards on the beaches so that tourists can
enjoy swimming without worry – they have already rescued
two people who had got into difficulty.
Organised first aid
training for hotel and tourist staff.
Organised and paid for a
nurse to be stationed at the Palm Beach/Sunnie Gambia Hotel during the
holiday season.
Organised and paid for a
midwife to be stationed at a village clinic that Bob
helped set up.
Paid for a bakers oven to
be built at an outlying village and provided bicycles
for delivering bread to surrounding villages so that
villagers could become self sufficient.
Sent over an ambulance to
an village (donated by the Red Cross), which has saved and
treated hundreds of people who otherwise have no
access to hospitals.
Provided beach hotels
with smoke alarms.
Constantly ships over
medical equipment, medicines, clothes, football kits for
school teams, books, writing materials, and educational
equipment.
Organised a
charity drive from
Birmingham to Banjul in the Gambia in order to raise funds
to set up scholarships for children who would otherwise be
unable to afford an education - children are educated for
free in primary school but have to pay for secondary or
tertiary education after the age of 10.
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Bob
Powell's Gambia Health and Schools Project Ongoing is a registered Gambian
charity incorporated under the Companies Act 1955: No.981/2003