Jali Education Trust

Hello all, I’m Margaret, and in 2012 I went on holiday to The Gambia and fell in love with the country and it's people. This love affair was the start of the "Jali Education Trust". The Gambia is an extremely poor country, with no government ‘back-up’ services. It's history is typical of many other African countries, but without the violence. It is a British Commonwealth country. As tourists we did the standard things that tourists do, such as visiting the local Primary School. I regretted the disruption to the kids' schooling, but the need for financial support was the other side of the coin.

So when the decision was made to go back to The Gambia the following year, I contacted our guide, Sambujung. I asked him to arrange a visit to a school well away from the tourist area, which would benefit from anything we could take for them. That was my introduction to Jali Lower Basic School in the village of Jali in the Kiang area, south of the river. Armed with a list of "needs" from the headmaster, we were welcomed with open arms by the kids, and indeed the whole village, most of whom I can call my friends.

The school has a roll of approximately 230 pupils from the village of about 2000 folk. My first project was to investigate the possibility of supplying a well to replace the old water system which was contaminated. The results of that story can be found in the ‘Project’ section. I then discovered that about 15% of the roll could not attend school because of lack of finance. That was the official start of the "Jali Education Trust", Set up to pay the fees for the kids who would otherwise no get to school, but more importantly, to make sure that funds were always available, indefinitely. One of the worst things you can do to kids in The Gambia is to give them schooling for a year and then take away the funding. They are desperate to learn. So to raise funds, I sell the products from my hobbies. I love textiles and colour, and add that to my hobbies of spinning, weaving, sewing and knitting, the range of items I sell vary widely. Every "penny" (after the cost of materials) now go to Jali. Take a look at the project page where you can see some of the activities the Trust has been up to over the years. The fundraising page gives an idea of the range of items I have sold in the past and Facebook and Instagram links will take you to a view of my latest designs....all of them unique.

Thank you for taking the time to read this little history.

Jali Report 2024

What a wonderful trip to my beautiful Gambia this year, and my trip up-country to Jali Lower Basic School.

Over the last 13 years I have seen many changes to the village and to the country, but this year the changes are spectacular. As soon as we turned off the South Bank highway, the changes were startling. We were greeted with a tarmacadam road, all the way up to the village turnoff! The reason soon became apparent, a new "government" hospital for the area. From the roadside we could see that lots of the land had been cleared and new cashew bushes were to be planted. This is a wonderful move for the country. Cashews are a crop that can be sold and exported out of the country for good money. It's just the start of outward trade which can only help this impoverished country.

When we reached the school, we were to learn of a massive new development plans for them. A large new classroom block is to be built in the school grounds, and on it's completion the existing buildings will be updated. I understand this is being funded by a Dutch charity group. What a difference this will make to this community. New roads, new electricity, new hospital, and now some new school buildings. The differences I noticed in the country in general showed signs of ”inward investment”, some good and some bad, but changes which will eventually filter down to the communities in this underdeveloped part of the world.

Nothing in this life is perfect, but a government which starts from a base of "zero" has a very hard struggle to make the impact that every one of its constituents expect. So of course some folk cannot see what they want to see, but as an outsider I left this trip with the distinct feeling that there was hope for my beautiful GAMBIA!