Author: Girls Take Action In The Gambia

Whilst some of the team were delivering the sexual health session in Brikama, the rest of the team travelled back to Gunjur and met up with a women's literacy group. We spent time helping them with reading and writing, using some resources we'd taken. It was a real eye opener for our girls to realise that women who are much older than them were still at basic primary school level. Our group with...

We spent the day in Brikama, a large town about 1/2 hour from where we stay. The students here all want to go to nursing college but didn't get the grades at school, so they are studying here on an access course to reach the standard required to enter the main college. We spent the morning training them on first aid skills. We had 5 areas: CPR & recovery position, minor injuries, bandages...

We went for a walk around the village where we are staying which is called Kajabang. We went to the women's community garden - they have several acres and around 70 women cultivate it. They grow food for their own families as well as having surplus crops to sell to make some money. We helped them to water the crops, pulling water up from the wells which are dotted around the site. Typical street...

We are grateful to the 12 Guide leaders who organised the camp, as well as the catering team who fed them all! Guide leaders   Firewood   Breakfast - fish, potatoes and onions - put on a sandwich   Catering equipment   Catering equipment   Catering team We bought some new uniforms for the Gunjur Guide group who we support on an ongoing basis. These were presented at the...

For our final morning of sessions with the Guides, we did team building games and paracord bracelets. They loved having something to make and take home with them, although it was hard for some of them to learn how to make the bracelets!              

This afternoon saw us teaching the Guides how they can set up their own community action projects. We split the group in half so they could cover two separate topics. Group 1 learnt all about water sanitation and hygiene, group 2 learnt about oral hygiene. It was relatively easy for us to teach the topics, but then when we asked the girls to lead the sessions themselves as if they were out in...

On our 2nd day at Guide camp we had all 100 participants with us. In the morning, we did 'science made fun' which was a variety of practical science sessions. We had 5 zones: Human body, senses, physics, bones, chemistry. The girls had 30 minutes in each zone to try all the activities. Human body zone - learning about blood   Bones zone - our skeleton (Boris!) Senses zone   Chemistry -...

We spent the afternoon at Guide camp - initially with the Guides from Gunjur. Throughout the afternoon Guides from all over the west coast of Gambia arrived to join.  We ran first aid sessions - we taught CPR, the recovery position, minor injuries, bandages & slings. Isobel explaining the recovery position   Millie demonstrating CPR   Guide leaders collecting firewood   Camp...

We spent the morning at Tanje cultural museum. We saw lots of displays about Gambian flora, fauna, weaving, early life, crafts and music.            

We are just boarding the plane at Manchester!