Our girls in Bondali receive a primary school education and seven girls can attend secondary school thanks to a sponsorship. This is a real opportunity, because without education, girls continue to work for the family and are married far too early.
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In Africa, schoolchildren receive a meal at school – often the only meal of the day, as in Bondali in the Gambia hinterland, where the Catharina Mellon School (nursery and primary school) is located.
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In September 2019 – thanks to numerous supports – with 100 children, we organized a day trip from Bondali to the coast 130 km away. We were traveling all day with an old big bus.
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Shutdown in Gambia – everything is closed! Yes, Corona has also arrived in Gambia and the case and death numbers are rising rapidly! The Gambia's health system will have little to oppose this.
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In September 2020 the first children will graduate from primary school and we are working on scholarships for secondary school. We want to try to finance five of the best graduates of the school with € 300 each for 6 years.
Read MoreEducation for Bondali – Every child should learn to read!
The Catharina Mellon School was founded in 2014 by the British Ralph Mellon and the Gambian Fugi Drammeh on land provided by the village of Bondali. The school is named after Ralph Mellon's mother.
Deep in the hinterland of Gambia, where the Catharina Mellon School is located, there is no running water, electricity or any other infrastructure. Most of the people live on some agriculture and handicraft. When the school was founded in 2014, the first thing we looked for was a good place to install a groundwater pump. The nearby village of Bondali, which had given the land for the school, and the school itself were to have a water connection!
Since there is no electricity in this area, a solar water pump was built to pump ground water into two large tanks. An international cooperation on site through a Dutch company that installed a German Lorenz pump. Financed by the British Ralph Mellon and organized voluntarily by Fugi Drammeh from Serekunda Gambia. The first school buildings were also constructed. Right from the start, the tireless school director Taibou Jobe was involved. Today he and his team teach over 200 children in the "Nursery" and "Primary School".
A vacation and educational trip took me to Gambia in January 2018 and got to know the living and educational conditions in this smallest and poorest part of West Africa. Spontaneously I decided to support a small school deep in the forgotten hinterland, especially since the supporter Ralph Mellon had died after a long illness.
Meanwhile, Taibou Jobe and his team teach 200 children in elementary school and kindergarten.
Education for Bondali – a small school can change the future!