We are pleased to have begun a working partnership with MyFarm, an educational and entrepreneurial charity located in Sukuta, a town near Ceesay Nursery School.
Managed by Kelly Taboure, a friend of our chair Diane Fisher, the charity is a residential education centre that runs programmes for children, young people and farmers with a focus on sustainable farming and entrepreneurial skills, as well as basic education for children from the local area.
During Diane’s trip to Ceesay Nursery School last month, she met with women from the local community to discuss how to get more local children enrolled at the school. Part of that discussion included conversations about using the school building as a wider community resource.
Diane explains: “To help those women that can’t afford to enroll their children at the school, I suggested the idea of helping them start their own enterprise or business project, based at the school. But I was clear they had to work together – it couldn’t be something a woman just did for herself and took home with her. It would need to benefit the school and help develop it, as well as helping them.
“Some ideas they had were: making skin creams, juices, clothes, pretty soaps, tie-dying materials and processing, drying and packaging moringa. They discussed this a lot but no real decision was reached.”
So Diane enlisted the help of MyFarm. She and the Gambian team went to visit the farm to take a closer look at the work they do and to see their enterprise training in action. “This was a very successful visit,” says Diane, “that resulted in new friendships and connections, as well as lots of inspirational ideas that our Gambian team would like to put in place.”
MyFarm has an outreach programme, called MyFarm on Wheels, and they came to the school on 9th May to work with the local women and help them decide what project they wanted to work on, to give them some direction.
With Gambian Alagie Ndow leading the training, the enterprise day went very well, with many enthusiastic local women learning how to make soap to sell. The women decided to start with soap making and then, with their profits, look at making other items in the future.
The next step is to fundraise £200 to pay for a week’s training, transport and food, and all the materials the women will need to set up properly as a community business at the school. We have a UK fundraiser, Lina Kochanske, who has volunteered to support the project by selling her artwork and bespoke greeting cards online, through Etsy.
Ceesay Nursery School 