Laptops sought for Gambian School

The Gambia is a very small country in West Africa almost totally surrounded by the much larger Senegal. 25 years ago The Derek Bailey Foundation was set up to develop educational opportunities in a very rural area around the village of Nyofelleh.

Children had to walk 5km each way to school along dirt tracks, which in the rainy season became so deep that sadly some children had drowned in them.

The Foundation, of which Keith and Chris Statham from Lowdham are trustees, has built a school, now catering for over 600 pupils, a clinic, which deals with over 7,000 cases a year and a maternity unit, vastly improving the infant mortality rate. In November 2016, Keith and Chris along with two other trustees, went out to see how the extension of three classrooms, to turn the school into a middle school, was progressing.

Thanks to a generous gift from Jackie and Peter Colquitt, the charity was also able to present the headmaster Mori with two laptops for the school. This could have been a potential disaster as there is no piped water or electricity in the village. However, following negotiations, a local IT technician has agreed to design a solar powered system which will run a suite of computers. From this a new project has been born.

Have you upgraded your laptop this Christmas and are now wondering how to dispose of your old one? The Derek Bailey Foundation can use every laptop that is made available, installing them in the school suite to bring 21st century education to a neglected part of the world. The foundation can also arrange for professional technicians to wipe data from units before sending them to the school.

Please contact Keith and Chris at keithstatham@hotmail.com if you think you may be able to donate one or more laptops to this very worthwhile cause. For further details on the Foundation please visit www.derek-bailey-foundation.org