Al Tinyan - Good afternoon

It has been a few days since the last post, not necessarily because of poor internet access this time, but because I have been so busy. Honestly, I promise! I even haven't had time for a dip in the hotel pool since Friday morning. I've been on the road at 8.30 and not back at base until well into the evening, I'm having such an adventure, working damn hard and meeting so many fantastic interesting people who desperately want to improve quality of life in their communities.

Working with the Board of Aid for Orphans and the Disabled (AFOD) has to be one of the most satisfying assignments I have ever accepted. Everyone is very committed and despite the intense heat and the fact that everyone else is operating on GMT - Gambian Maybe Time - the people I'm working are more than prepared to put the hours in. It is such a buzz!

Over the weekend we completed the charity's strategic plan developing aims, objectives, outcomes and performance indicators. Up until recently AFOD has been trying to be all things to all people - essentially because the needs are so great.

Now they have a very clear realistic and highly relevant plan that will focus essentially on growing the sponsorship to support orphaned and disabled children to go to school - the educational system here is such that each family has to pay school fees and provide pens, pencils and exercise books. There are no free school meals and unlike the UK there is absolutely no support for the additional costs like school uniform and travel. Consequently orphaned children, of which there are many as the average life expectancy is only fifty and families are often large. Traditionally a child with a disability is seen as having limited economic value as they are destined to a life of begging on the street and consequently families have denied them the opportunity of a basic education. Would you believe however that a child could be sponsored for as little as £20 per annum? Before the week is out we will be working on the content of a website for AFOD, which will include a safe facility for making online donations. If you would like to make a donation, please send me an email and I will send you the link when it is available.

The second aim that AFOD has developed is to provide a sponsorship scheme to support orphaned and disabled young people to develop vocational skills so that they can become more economically active when leave school.It has been most enlightening in our discussions that the kind of examples for training that we have used the most have been traditional soap making and web design - two extremes I know, but it reflects the values of the AFOD members and their desire to support disabled or orpnahed to fulfil their potential and contribute as valued members of their communities.

The third aim will build on the last in that it is to set up a micro finance scheme to provide ongoing support for the people who have been trained to purchase the equipment to practice their newly learned trades. The economy in this part of The Gambia at least is very much dominated by the tourist industry - probably the best paying sector and also by petty trading. The towns are full of tiny shops selling alll kinds of cheap goods and fresh fruit and vegetables that respond to what is very much a hand to mouth existence. I belive many will buy a box of goods at wholesaler, sell each item for a small profit and then buy another box of goods.

The term capacity building is used a lot by the people I am working with. They are very keen to provide the highest quality service they can and recognise that this means that they need to develop their own skills. In developing an aim for the capacity building of AFOD, they want ensure that the young people involved have opportunities to develop their own organisational development and management skills.