Positive news

We are delighted that on 23^rd January the FCO changed their advice for The Gambia, stating they “no longer advise against travel to The Gambia; the situation has stabilised and the possibility of a military intervention is no longer likely”.

We have spoken to Girlguiding, our insurers, Thomas Cook and the Gunjur Project and we are delighted to announce that our trip is back on! We’ve contacted all our team members and everyone is still committed!

Things are changing in The Gambia

The President of The Gambia Yahya Jammeh has been in power for 22 years, since he took over in a military coup. He was defeated in the elections of December 2016 by Adama Barrow, but has been refusing to relinquish power.  On 19th January Mr Barrow is due to take office, but due to the uncertainty around the situation, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has decided to intervene and has sent in military force. The purpose is to forcefully remove Mr Jammeh from office, should he not go of his own accord.

Due to the arrival of the military and the potential for violence, the UK's Foreign and Commonwealth Office has changed their travel advice to say they 'advise against all non essential travel'.

Unfortunately for us, whilst this FCO advice is in place, we are not able to go to The Gambia. However, we are in close contact with The Gunjur Project, the FCO, our insurance company, Thomas Cook and Girlguiding UK International Commissioner and are monitoring the situation closely.

We are hopeful for a speedy and positive outcome to this situation and our thoughts are with the people of The Gambia.

Third team briefing

Our 3rd team briefing started with some more team building, which is so important when we don't see each other so often.

We used a game which we will play with the Gambian Guides, where there are teams and they have to build a structure which is called out by the facilitator. Here, we have a toilet and a tree!

 

 


We had a hygienist come and talk to us about oral hygiene, so that we could plan a peer education session to deliver to the Guides as well as at the community health day we plan to run in The Gambia.

Second team briefing

For our 2nd team briefing, we made a weekend of it - staying at our county residential centre, Pettypool.

We started with some team building games, where each team had to choose a piece of music then be the band who are performing it.

As well as continuing to build and strengthen our team, the main purpose of the weekend was to make a start on writing the peer education sessions we will deliver when we're in The Gambia.

We spent an afternoon working on simple science experiments, which we can demonstrate to the Gunjur Guides and also Sifoe secondary school who we will spend 1/2 day with.

 

 


We also learnt first aid skills, how to make paracord bracelets and woggles, team games, icebreakers and energisers. One of our favourites was the 'ha-ha' game - we probably can't do this in Gambia as the floor is very dirty, but it made us laugh a lot!

Gunjur Guides out working in their community

The Gunjur Girl Guides who we are supporting and working with have been out doing their first piece of community action. They've been litter picking and cleaning in the area where they live. We're so proud of them!

First briefing for TeamGambia2017

We were excited to have the first briefing meeting for #TeamGambia2017 this month - it was all about getting to know each other and team building.

We played human hungry hippos, where we had to collect as many balls as we could on a moving skateboard - very funny and harder than it looks!

We then had to whip some cream so it was safe enough to turn the bowl upside down over our heads without getting covered in it.


We also decided which cultural activities we'd like to do whilst we are in The Gambia and what the split should be between 'work and play'.

Great progress for Gunjur Guides

A couple of our team members made a private trip to The Gambia over Easter and they took the opportunity to catch up with the Gunjur Guides.

Much has happened since our group was there last year - Jo at the Gunjur Project and Alagi have been working really hard to try to find leaders to run the guide unit. Various options have been tested and currently the group is being led by the amazing and inspiring Betty Sambou. She's an incredible young woman who has 7 children but is still finding the time & enthusiasm to take on this project.

The guide unit has over 35 girls with a list of more who want to join. They are meeting in a couple of different local schools, every Saturday. We have provided them with a variety of resources and activity ideas.

Sue & Rachel visited the guide unit to see how they were getting on and gave Betty some feedback and suggestions on how she could adapt the meetings to make them easier to manage. Then they spent a couple of hours training the 5 patrol leaders. They gave the girls a set of cards with lots of different activities, which the PLs had to put into piles of what they would and wouldn't like to do at Guides. Then they had to prioritise them. This will be useful for helping Betty to plan her programme.

PLs choosing their preferred activities

PLs looking at how guides can help them

They explained to the girls that it's too big a job for Betty to do everything on her own, so the PLs need to help out more and be like her assistant leaders. The girls seemed happy to get involved in this way - if it works out, this will be a huge help to Betty.

The Guides are spending this weekend doing a community project, litter picking in their local area.

It was very encouraging to see how this new guide unit is flourishing and we can't wait to see how things develop over the next year before we meet with them again.

Betty and the Patrol Leaders