Category: 2015

This weekend we had a fundraising ball, held at Widnes rugby league stadium. Almost 100 people attended what was a great night. Our share of the event's profits, plus some additional cash donations on the night, raised over £800 towards our work in The Gambia. Big thanks to the organising team and those who supported it! Some of Team Gambia 2015 looking very glamorous!

Big thanks to Warrington hospital and Liverpool Action for the Blind who have donated lots of low vision aids for us to take to The Gambia. We spent a couple of hours on Friday evening sorting through them all.  

It was our final briefing today - the first time we had all 27 team members together at the same time! We discussed the proposal to build a playground at the new local primary school and signed up to the peer education sessions we all wanted to do. We wrote our group charter and looked at some ideas for the murals we plan to paint in Gambia. Then Jemma and Steph refreshed everyone's basic first...

We've been ordering all the resources we need for our peer education sessions and the deliveries are coming thick and fast now! We are looking forward to our final team meeting on 1st March so we can share them all out between the groups to carry to The Gambia.

We would like to say a big thank you to some organisations who have supported us: Earthwise Girls - they have liaised with one of their manufacturers and given us a great discount on 80 sets of reusable sanitary pads for us to give to the girls who come to our menstrual hygiene peer education session. PZ Cussons - they have donated some Imperial Leather soap for us to use in our water sanitation...

It's only 7 weeks today until we'll be in The Gambia! Exciting! A Proper countdown from here! We've paid off the balance on our flights. Resources are being delivered daily now, ready to be shared out amongst the team at our final briefing day in 2 weeks.  We're liaising with our friends at the Gunjur Project about what projects will benefit from a donation out of the money we've fundraiser. A...

First official photo of 2015 team!  

We met for our 3rd briefing day in January. We had a lot to get through, as we had to plan all our peer education sessions. Self esteem - a tough topic Choosing some crafts to take. Planning a session on menstrual hygiene - a topic Alagi suggested as it's very misunderstood. A return of the water sanitation & hygiene topic. First aid and eye testing experts. Emily works on a science session....

The badges we sent to The Gambia have been presented to the local guide unit. The presentation was made on our behalf by Kathryn from Silksworth guides in Sunderland who was there doing some project work. The guides loved their new badges - now they just have to learn to sew them on!

We had our 2nd team meeting on Saturday 22nd November - which happens to be both Mandy and Eleanor H's birthdays!  We spent some more time getting to know each other and doing some team building activities. Plus we talked about which peer education topics we might like to cover and which cultural / tourist things we'd like to do.