MESSAGE FROM THE DIRECTOR, Momodou Lamin Fye
My life took a dramatic twist in 1984. April 12 was on a fateful day when I witnessed for the second time, an accident. The first that took place a year earlier was nothing compared to this accident where two children were run over by a passenger vehicle along the main motor road in my village, Barra. Amidst a yelling and panicked crowd, I saw the two unmoving bodies clad in school uniforms with bloodstain on them and people scrambling to help them. A score of other children, obviously shocked by the terrible images they saw, were seen running frantically crying out the names of their two school colleagues. More commotion ensued when the neighbors joined in. I offered some first aid, a lesson I learned from the Gambia Red Cross at the age of 11. Too late to save them as the injuries sustained were fatal. It was pandemonium all over the place. Few hours later, their parents reluctantly accepting that they have lost the children, finally gave them up for burial at the village graveyard. Joining the mourning families, I was made to understand that one of the two kids was a girl attending her second year (primary 2) at Essau Primary school. They were coming from school which was situated about three kilometres away from Barra.
The lives of the two children came to a sudden end but a chapter in my life was opened. Writing about this life experience is painful even though unavoidable. The images I saw on that Thursday afternoon remain vivid whenever I walk past that locality. My life was changed by what may have sprung from a reaction of some sort. It was nothing short of a spontaneous and uncalculated reaction to fill a gap created by the very society that has a fundamental obligation to protect and educate the child. I firmly believed that some thing, however minor, could be done to change things. Many things came to my mind and the recurring thought was, “why don’t I mobilize the village to establish a school in Barra that hosted a population of some 6000 people, 40% of whom were children of school going age.” It was ironical that not even a basic Government run education structure existed to cater for these children. The situation was not very different from what I and my age group experienced 20 years earlier. I recall walking 5 miles a day, barefooted and through the rough bushes to Essau Primary school for six years. The marked difference however, is that in our days, we did not see many vehicles. The few that existed made so much noise that you could hear them a kilometre away.
The next two days were filled not only with sadness in the village but relentless efforts to persuade my father to give up an old dilapidated room for the establishment of a school. I had a few hands to help. I recall being told by the few educated villagers that I was set for a very difficult task. They were partly right because, I had no idea what the challenges were going to be. The most visible of these were the absence of trained teachers to run the school, furniture for the children, teaching materials, the remuneration for the teachers and above all the approval of the education authorities. I did not care much about the latter but felt terrified by the mere thought of mobilizing the needed resources. Luck struck when one of my cousins who finished high school but had no job, accepted to do his best to run the school. We both agreed that we would try first with children as old as 5 years.
With a few volunteers, we borrowed wooden planks from my father and collected some boulder stones from the roadside. The stones were used as to support the weights of the planks where children, would be seated. Our next problem was to settle the issue of a blackboard. Since no plywood or hard board was immediately available, I bought black paint from a nearby shop and got one of the volunteers to paint some part of the wall black. We had a blackboard but no chalk. As this was on Sunday, we had no choice but to wait until the following day when we planned to either beg for chalk from Essau Primary school or to buy if needed. Following brief meetings with the village council and supported by a group of women, we went round the village informing parents that they could send their children to the newly established school in Barra. We chose to name the school after my grandfather Sajuka (because he was the first one in Barra to send his kids and kin to school during the colonial era).
On Monday 16th April, a handful parents walked into the classroom not sure of what will happen. The teacher, even though enthusiastic, became timid. This was his first time to stand before a crowd to teach. But then he pulled out a piece of white chalk and stood before the children writing on the board and chanting A, B, C, 1,2,3. Both the kids and their parents followed suit. Twenty-four years later, Sajuka has grown to from a nursery and Day Care Centre to a Primary school, skills training Centre, youth protection scheme and many other projects to improve the livelihoods of women. A dream coming true………
My life took a dramatic twist in 1984. April 12 was on a fateful day when I witnessed for the second time, an accident. The first that took place a year earlier was nothing compared to this accident where two children were run over by a passenger vehicle along the main motor road in my village, Barra. Amidst a yelling and panicked crowd, I saw the two unmoving bodies clad in school uniforms with bloodstain on them and people scrambling to help them. A score of other children, obviously shocked by the terrible images they saw, were seen running frantically crying out the names of their two school colleagues. More commotion ensued when the neighbors joined in. I offered some first aid, a lesson I learned from the Gambia Red Cross at the age of 11. Too late to save them as the injuries sustained were fatal. It was pandemonium all over the place. Few hours later, their parents reluctantly accepting that they have lost the children, finally gave them up for burial at the village graveyard. Joining the mourning families, I was made to understand that one of the two kids was a girl attending her second year (primary 2) at Essau Primary school. They were coming from school which was situated about three kilometres away from Barra.
The lives of the two children came to a sudden end but a chapter in my life was opened. Writing about this life experience is painful even though unavoidable. The images I saw on that Thursday afternoon remain vivid whenever I walk past that locality. My life was changed by what may have sprung from a reaction of some sort. It was nothing short of a spontaneous and uncalculated reaction to fill a gap created by the very society that has a fundamental obligation to protect and educate the child. I firmly believed that some thing, however minor, could be done to change things. Many things came to my mind and the recurring thought was, “why don’t I mobilize the village to establish a school in Barra that hosted a population of some 6000 people, 40% of whom were children of school going age.” It was ironical that not even a basic Government run education structure existed to cater for these children. The situation was not very different from what I and my age group experienced 20 years earlier. I recall walking 5 miles a day, barefooted and through the rough bushes to Essau Primary school for six years. The marked difference however, is that in our days, we did not see many vehicles. The few that existed made so much noise that you could hear them a kilometre away.
The next two days were filled not only with sadness in the village but relentless efforts to persuade my father to give up an old dilapidated room for the establishment of a school. I had a few hands to help. I recall being told by the few educated villagers that I was set for a very difficult task. They were partly right because, I had no idea what the challenges were going to be. The most visible of these were the absence of trained teachers to run the school, furniture for the children, teaching materials, the remuneration for the teachers and above all the approval of the education authorities. I did not care much about the latter but felt terrified by the mere thought of mobilizing the needed resources. Luck struck when one of my cousins who finished high school but had no job, accepted to do his best to run the school. We both agreed that we would try first with children as old as 5 years.
With a few volunteers, we borrowed wooden planks from my father and collected some boulder stones from the roadside. The stones were used as to support the weights of the planks where children, would be seated. Our next problem was to settle the issue of a blackboard. Since no plywood or hard board was immediately available, I bought black paint from a nearby shop and got one of the volunteers to paint some part of the wall black. We had a blackboard but no chalk. As this was on Sunday, we had no choice but to wait until the following day when we planned to either beg for chalk from Essau Primary school or to buy if needed. Following brief meetings with the village council and supported by a group of women, we went round the village informing parents that they could send their children to the newly established school in Barra. We chose to name the school after my grandfather Sajuka (because he was the first one in Barra to send his kids and kin to school during the colonial era).
On Monday 16th April, a handful parents walked into the classroom not sure of what will happen. The teacher, even though enthusiastic, became timid. This was his first time to stand before a crowd to teach. But then he pulled out a piece of white chalk and stood before the children writing on the board and chanting A, B, C, 1,2,3. Both the kids and their parents followed suit. Twenty-four years later, Sajuka has grown to from a nursery and Day Care Centre to a Primary school, skills training Centre, youth protection scheme and many other projects to improve the livelihoods of women. A dream coming true………