... top

What has it felt like being involved in such a life changing project? As daily life carries on in Fintry School find out how 3 teachers have viewed their first steps into Africa.

The Sambel Effect

As published in The Stirling observer newspaper

Death, tears, laughter and dire poverty have been a daily part of the lives of three Stirling Council teachers over the Easter break. The remote Gambian village of Sambel Kunda has been home to David and Jackie Smith and Anna McCallum, all staff at Fintry Primary School.

Fintry School, in partnership with Stirling Council and the Education Department of Gambia, has created a recognised national charity – G.I.F.T.S., The Gambian Institute for Teacher Training in Scotland. Now at the end of its first year of work, there are schools all over Stirling backing one of the fastest moving and biggest impacting projects of its kind in Africa.

“We cannot believe how quickly we have been able to make a clear difference to the lives of thousands of children and families in one of Africa’s poorest countries,” said Anna McCallum, P3/4 class teacher and secretary of GIFTS. “Each of us has now been out twice to Sambel Kunda and this time we were training teachers from 7 schools – the whole cluster, representing around 2,000 children.”

Training: the key

The biggest single problem is that most teachers in rural Africa are untrained. They arrive straight from Secondary School and simply repeat the model they saw. They chant, they shout, they unintentionally de-motivate children. They have no way of knowing how to help the slow or stretch the able in their classes. Yet, they are desperate to be helped as every child, every family, rates education as the most important thing in their lives.

“Many people from Britain try to help in African schools, but almost all of it is in the towns and cities,” explained Jackie Smith, P7 teacher at Fintry. “This is because it is so hard to get out into the massive rural population where poverty is even worse. There are no hotels. You have to travel where roads hardly exist and the temperature soars to 45°c. It is no holiday! You sweat and long for cold water.”

Scorpion

The team took to sleeping under the stars, like locals, to try and keep cool. This meant giant insects thudding into them in the dark and tiptoeing with a torch to check they were not putting a foot on a deadly scorpion. Sometimes with no warning, a wind would envelope all in a total sandstorm. Mini whirlwinds roared by and were gone as soon as they appeared. The temperature plummeted 35º in a matter of hours – from higher than your own blood temperature to the chill of a Scottish night. Washing was done with a small hand jug and even tooth-brushing needs to avoid contamination with the local water as weak northern stomachs cannot cope.

The local life expectancy is two-thirds of that of ours. Families are often up to 15 – 20 people in size – the young are your pension fund as they will feed and care for you, and respect you when you are old. Women work far harder than men do. But the schools are pushing the new status of equality – and Jackie was quick to point out that she was the boss in David’s household!

Tragedy

David was only in his second day of the trip when he was devastated by a tragedy. He had spent 3 hours in travelling each way to have an important political meeting with the Director of Education. On the return, he travelled in a pick-up truck with local head teacher Musa Darboe and an experienced driver, Mamajang. As always they had picked up friends and relatives who were thumbing lifts in a world where the common vehicle is a horse and cart. Now they had 6 people inside and a further 5 hanging on to the dust-swathed back section.

As they passed through a small village, they saw a boy of about 7, poised to dash across the road. David picks up the story, “Mamajang hooted early, as he always does, to warn the boy, who is unused to traffic, to stand still. We passed him and sensed him tense to dart across after we passed. At the same time, a small truck passed us in the opposite direction. They boy ran behind us, straight into the path of the truck.”

“The men in the back of our pick-up who saw the horrific impact, thumped on our roof and shouted. We braked and then slowly reversed the 200 hundred yards to where the truck was. We got out and with a mixture of desperation and fear ran to the scene. In this short minute, hundreds of people appeared from nowhere screaming and wailing. The distraught parents bundled the little body into the truck, vainly urging the driver to take them on to the next town for aid. We were surrounded by children looking up at us, tears streaming down their faces and ours.

“Everyone wanted to help. But no one could do a thing. We returned to our vehicle and continued in total silence – sometimes black and white hands just squeezing each other – and showing our despair – This is Africa.”

Chicken tonight

There were times of laughter too. Like the time David and Jackie were summoned to the home of Mawdo Barry, the boy who had become a legend in Stirling. In the film taken last year, and seen by thousands now, a simple gift had changed his life. Mawdo was 15 then and walking to Secondary School once a fortnight – a 3 hour hike. The Fintry team had surprised him with a new bike. Cost £30 – but equal to 2 – 3 months wages for some. It meant Mawdo could be home every weekend and work in the rice fields and repair his mud home for his family. He wrote countless letters of thanks and his family responded like they had been given a car.

So David and Jackie were called to receive thanks, in the form of a most valued gift: a trussed up, live and flapping chicken was handed over. The Smiths looked as delighted as they could and bowed respectfully. It would have to be eaten and reported back on!

Two days later, the same gift came from another family and this was secretly given to others to fatten and consume after the Smiths had returned home.

Where did the time go?

Workers in Africa learn flexibility. GMT is known locally as Gambian Maybe Time. Everything is promised – but clock and calendar obsessed British struggle to understand why Gambians may see no urgency when tomorrow is just another day with the same mouths to fill, the same heat, the same nowhere to go.

The Fintry team had thought they had planned everything so that they could train teachers in the Gambian school holiday, without children. But it was not to be. The holidays were suddenly moved (no one has booked a trip to the seaside – no one knew what a holiday is in our sense.) So the whole teaching programme had to be restructured on the spot. More misunderstandings happen. Training fees are paid to the teachers – and negotiations are needed as the GIFTS team tries to find more funds that are slipping through their hands. Many meetings later all is resolved and the Fintry team turn a disaster to advantage. They persuaded the 20 trainers to start work from 7 – 9 a.m. in the cool air. Day one will be without children – word is sent by mouth to 8 villages. Then the rest of the week will be early morning and late night training with the visiting teachers sharing classes and trying out the ideas with real children. The plan is a huge success. The Scottish trainers are able to get into classes – observe, team-teach and evaluate. In the second week they are also able to follow-up in the other schools and see what the impact of the training is.

Resource troubles

Some of the schools had virtually nothing to teach with. Classrooms have ancient rickety desks or benches, if they are lucky. Or they sit on the floor. Jotters and pencils are scarce. Textbooks are few. The GIFT’S team was able to go to the Country’s Education HQ and find out how to buy the right curriculum materials and get them into the classrooms. Corruption is rife and people in responsible jobs, but earning £300 - £500 per year, will naturally seek ways to add to this. The Stirling team hopes they have put a plan in place to cut through this – but only the next visit will prove it.

In the nick of time a ship arrived with resources sent 6 weeks ago from Scotland. It took countless meetings, bribes, forms and fees to get it out of the port. It was then repackaged and sent up-country to the 7 schools.

Stirling Schools have been superb in their response to supporting the Gambia. Riverside Primary gave an incredible £1,450, which will stock two large schools with resources never even dreamed of. There is no income for a school. They need charity and they are not too proud to say it. Drymen and Borestone gave donations, which now mean African children have a better chance.

GIFTS has a plan to extend the School Sponsorship scheme for Sambel Kunda. Stirling classes can directly commit to backing Gambian classes and they will be able to have photos and links through the future work of GIFTS. Contact Fintry School as to how.

Telling the story

A new film has been made telling part two of the story – how electricity came to an African village from GIFTS work with the University of Strathclyde. The camera will take you into a real herdsman’s family home and show the true living conditions. Fintry children can deliver talks and show the new film to other classes. Fintry staff are also happy to do evening talks to adult groups or societies. The school’s number is 01360 860 204 or email fintryps@stirling.gov.uk