Annual Report Sept 2011 – 2012
Ceesay Nursery and Primary School

Sponsorship
Thanks to fantastic efforts of Martin and Dawn Dobson, we are now sponsoring the education of 18 Gambian children. This includes 3 children attending nursery school, 14 children attending primary school and one child who is now attending secondary school. 4 of the sponsored children are boys, 14 are girls. As previously discussed in our meetings, we are sponsoring more orphaned and extremely poor girls, as their education is often not seen as a priority in very poor families.

At the time of writing, (23rd September) all the sponsors have paid for the academic year, 2012–13 except two, both who have assured me that they intend to continue sponsoring for this academic year and will send their sponsorship monies asap.

One sponsor has taken up the option to pay monthly, at £7 a month (£84 a year instead of £75 in order to cover extra transfer fees out to the Gambia).

Finances
Accounts are being prepared by Dawn, who has very kindly been dealing with all the financial transactions in the UK and has been sending the sponsorship fees and donations out to the Gambia. She is using another company now, Bayba. We have stopped using Thomas Exchanges due to lack of confidence and do not use Western Union as their fees are quite high and their collection offices are not local to the school, thus incurring unnecessary extra transport costs for Mr Ceesay.

Bayba is an African run company and Dawn reports that now that our account with them is set up, it is very easy to use and she can do it all on-line. Mr Ceesay, the Headmaster reports that they give a good rate of exchange and that their office is based in a convenient location on the main road into Serrekunda.

This year since we have charitable status, since September 2011, we have been able to apply for Gift Aid on all donations made between September 25th and the end of the tax year (beginning of April 2012). Gift Aid is the tax money that HM Revenue and Customs give back on legitimate donations made by taxpayers to registered charities. It is 25% of the donation! So, we were able to claim back £250 this year. The more children we find sponsors for, the more Gift Aid we can claim back, next year.

£200 of this money was sent to the school and used to pay nearly all the long overdue salaries for the teachers from last term and it also allowed the school to buy paper and some supplies for this academic year 2012–13. The other £50 was used to buy Mr Ceesay, the Head teacher, a renovated laptop so he can use free hotspots to send emails, reports and also to Skype regularly. We have found this a very useful form of regular communication. With a laptop, Mr Ceesay will be able to reduce his costs as he will not need to travel so far (1½ hours away) to use the internet cafe. I will take it out with me and give him some extra IT training to ensure he is making the most of it when I go out to the Gambia this winter.

Accounts
See Appendix A.

Administrative Improvements
Gift Aid forms for sponsors to fill in and sign have been created and sent out and nearly all the sponsors have returned them. I am chasing up the rest of them.

Note: Anyone who donates is eligible to apply for their tax to be returned to us as Gift Aid: If they were employed and paying tax in the last financial year, as long as they paid at least as much tax as 25% of their donation e.g. If they sponsor a child for £75 they would need to have paid at least £18.75 tax in the last year. If someone is NOT employed, they can still apply for Gift Aid if they have paid 25% of their donation in tax on their savings interest, or on their state or other pension, on investments or rental income or in Capital Gains or other gains tax.

PayPal, after many frustrating delays, is now completely set up on our website, has been tested and is working. We have the official ‘Verified Status’. So anyone that would like to sponsor a child, donate or support a specific appeal can do so quickly and easily directly from the website and the money will go straight into the Ceesay Nursery and Primary School bank account. PayPal also send an automatic notification of who has paid in and what amount, which should really cut down on time spent on detective work, discovering who has donated!

Gethin Webster has built us a beautiful website, which is constantly being improved, with everyone’s suggestion and his hard work. Have a look on: http://ceesay-school.org/. We now have our Mission Statement, an ‘About Us’ page, lots of photos from our last visit and a very easy email contact form. Very soon we will have this annual report and some photos of our hard-working committee members up.

Facebook – a new, young member of our committee, Autumn Gale, is leading on the social networking side and we are in the process of creating a Facebook site for the school. This will widen our exposure considerably, especially amongst younger people and all those with iPhones. We think all these steps will considerably improve our effectiveness when we start to fundraise for land and to build the school.

Reports – all school reports from the 14 children sponsored last year have been received via email and have been sent out to their respective sponsors. This is a vast improvement from the previous, costly and extremely inefficient posting by mail. Thanks to Mr Ceesay for his very efficient scanning and use of email to get the reports out. The postal system in the Gambia is very slow and it was far too time consuming redirecting the paper reports once they arrived in the UK.

Enrolment forms and photos of sponsored children are now being scanned in and sent electronically, so it is much, much easier for me to forward them on to their prospective sponsors.

Newsletter – we produced one newsletter last year and this year we are aiming to produce one every 4 months, linked up with membership, to keep everyone up to date with school developments and progress and sustain interest. We will also use the newsletters to advertise special offers for anyone that would like to visit the Gambia – the Smiling Coast of Africa – for a truly unforgettable warm winter holiday. We have been able to link up with a Gambian based charity, the Gunjur Project Lodge, to offer sponsors and members a substantial discount on their holiday accommodation if they base themselves at the lovely, eco-friendly, Lodge in Gunjur, just 10 minutes stroll from a stunning unspoiled sandy beach. Guests will be taken to visit the school and the child that they are sponsoring at home, if they so desire.

The DVD that Mr Ceesay sent us, unfortunately seems to be unplayable, despite Martin and Dawn’s considerable IT skills.

Mr Ceesay sent us all a letter, (see Appendix B) to update us and to emphasise that securing land was now their highest priority, as schools without their own premises are being shut down by the government.

Setbacks
Unfortunately, the London nursery school that agreed to twin with us has fallen out of communication, despite many emails and attempts to contact the interested teacher by phone.

Future Plans
At time of writing, I am finalising plans to spend some of the winter in the Gambia, to investigate the cost of a suitable piece of land and the legalities before we commit to anything. I want to investigate the training available for teachers and what it would cost to sponsor the teachers to become professionally qualified. I aim to also invite Western holiday makers to come and visit the school, in order to find more sponsors for needy children and enlist more financial support for our school building project. I am convinced that by actually physically being there, I will be able to really get the school development off the ground in a way that would be impossible from Europe. I am of course, funding all of this entirely myself.

Diane Fisher
23rd September, 2012