The African Oyster Trust Charity | Nursery Education and Healthcare in Gambia

The African Oyster Trust's AGM will take place on Saturday 23rd October at 4pm at the offices of Leader Communications in Henley-in-Arden.


All supporters, donors and interested parties are welcome to attend. We would be grateful if you could let us know if you intend to attend - please send us a message via the Contact Us page.

There's been plenty of progress to report over the last month on our newest project at Talinding.

The roof is already nearly done, the doors and windows are in, toilets are built and all of the classrooms have been plastered.

To find out why this project is so important to the children of Talingding, click here.

To make a donation and support this work, click here.

The trust team in The Gambia, led as ever by Kira Dalton, has embarked on another exciting project - this time building a completely new three-classroom nursery school and compound for children in Talinding.

The facility is badly needed; when Kira first visited the existing JTT Nursery School she found 134 children aged from 3 to 7 years crammed into a single room with no space for proper teaching or play activities.

Read the full report here, and please do stop to think whether you can make a donation to the project (our donation page, including online facilities, is here).

Every new project we undertake makes a world of difference to the lives of these young children, but we are only a small charity and every intervention  depends on the goodwill and support of our individual and corporate donors. We are grateful to each and every one.

The founder of Mariama Mae Pre-School in Gunjur, Ali Calvert, has posted a report on progress at the school, as well as plenty of new photos. Click here to see the latest from this wonderful project.

by Trudy Andrews, Volunteer

This spring, as Ali was unable to get away, I went with my daughter Kate to visit Mariama Mae Pre-School in Gunjur. Well, we just managed to get everything on the list done in one week.

We found the school running well; the children happy and developing; and the resources being used creatively. The teachers were pleased to see us too. They had lots to tell us: all had attended a workshop by visitors from Concern Universal; a new teacher for class 2 was being tried out; and a 2 day curriculum workshop was being held in the village on Saturday and Sunday, which Kate and myself joined for a morning and found many very committed teachers who had given up days off to improve their skills and the education of pre-school children in Gunjur.

Kate managed to cover the well-used books of the reading scheme: you sure can tell which stories are the children's favourites; Milika's Bath and The River.

I was impressed by the progress that the year 3 children had made having had only one year of education since the school opened. I am sure that with their new teacher they will be ready to move on to Lower Basic in September.

One task I had set myself was to make an easel so that a local carpenter could follow the pattern and produce some more. I was successful, but had to adapt the pattern to the available wood. It was tested and worked well with the donated paint pots, brushes and wallpaper – now all we need are some aprons.

I enjoyed living within the community of Gunjur and love seeing the enthusiasm that all the children have for education, and for life in general.

Royal Spa Brass is holding a Heroes and Villains family concert at All Saints Church, Leamington Spa, on Saturday 8th May, with all proceeds going to the African Oyster Trust.

This is a great opportunity to support our work in Africa while enjoying a fun night out, so please put the date in your diary. The concert starts at 7.30pm and tickets are priced £7 (£3 concessions). Visit www.royalspabrass.com for more details.

Thank you to Iain Masson and everyone at Royal Spa Brass for their wonderful support.

By Katy, a supporter

What a pleasure it was to visit The Gambia for the first time, primarily to see the Mariama Mae Pre-School in Gunjur.

In a corner of what we would call a very large primary school, within the branches of two Baoba trees, lay a Gambia pre-school. You can see that this pre-school has been carefully planned and resourced with Gambian children aged four to seven years in mind.

There are two buildings. The first is divided into class one and class two, and also includes an office and two storage rooms. Class three for the older children is in a separate building across the yard. In between is a building decorated with colour paintings of flowers and containing two porcelain toilets. The classrooms are situated on a perfect sized plot which allows the children freedom at play time; it has shade from a mango tree and a raised seating area around which is a mosaic of broken tiles for decoration. New to the playground is a large sand pit, a guaranteed hit with children world wide.

On entering the preschool I find the atmosphere welcoming, and notice the 'preschool buzz' straight away. I feel happy here and I can tell that the children are happy to be at school. They have the correct attitude to assist learning through play and discovery.

Work and projects decorate the rooms from all angles. The resources in the classroom have been carefully chosen and reflect their nationality. Book shelves with reading schemes focused around African life and story books about African animals and people.

The principle teacher is a friendly, warm and approachable lady who has chosen her team well and seems to effortlessly run the school in a calm manner.

Congratulations to everybody involved in making Mariama Mae Pre-School such a wonderful example of a Gambian pre-school. I am sure this school, if not already, will become a model for other developing pre-schools in The Gambia, and I am privelleged to have seen it in action and I am happy to support this school.

By Alan Dick

Just in time for Christmas, a consignment of boxes arrved in the Gambia marked for the attention of Kira Dalton. They contained a whole load of 'goodies' which were the result of generous donations of clothes, books and so on from various people and organisations.

Photo One:

Birmingham City Football Club kindly donated football strips, tracksuits and training gear.

Expect a Banjul branch of the Birmingham City Supporters Club to open soon!

Photos Two and Three (right and below): Children of Bothwell Primary School near Glasgow, and Berkswell Primary School near Coventry rallied round last year to support young Gambian children less fortunate than themselves, by donating t-shirts and football strips.

All were greatly appreciated as you can see right and below.

Photo Four (below): Last year, Eleanor Elcock, a student from Lichfield and former part-time worker at Woolworths, managed to persuade her local store, prior to its final closure, to donate childrens clothes and gym shoes to the African Oyster Trust.

The photo shows just some of the many happy recipients.

By Kira Dalton

On arrival at Jappineh Clinic last Friday, a young woman had just been admitted who had been gored by a bull and brought in by donkey cart (this was certainly not a minor wound - it had entered her left buttock, perforated her intestine and come out the front).

The three trainee Dutch doctors who were fortunately visiting with me immediately set to helping Anmsumana putting her on a drip and pumping her full of antibiotics and fluids as she was losing a lot of blood. As she clearly would need surgery, we then commandeered a rental car and driver and sent her, her newborn baby and mother - acccompanied by two of the doctors, to Soma. They were met by an ambulance which transferred her to Farafenni hospital. The Dutch doctor's did not rate her chances as very good.

We later learned she had been transferred to Banjul for surgery since Farafeni could not cope and had no blood supplies.

Today the Dutch doctor's report that she is recovering well at RVTH. If ever there were a case of extremely good luck this must be it. Also, it justifies exactly why we need an ambulance. Had we not all been there, she would never have made it by donkey cart!

By Kira Dalton

A brief update following a very productive three days up in Jappineh.

Firstly, the clinic building and environment looks terrific. All the painting is done. The Cuban doctor's house is now fully refurbished (where Ansumana and his family are living) as are the other staff quarters. There is even working running water in all three buildings and solar light! The compound is clean and they have planted cassava, bananas, eggplants, peppers etc. Fanding now plans to add flower beds near the main entrance.

Inside, every bed was occupied. Three cases of complicated malaria admitted on drips, one woman with pneumonia, a young boy admitted with convulsions and a dog bite victim. Ansumana has, so far, delivered around 20 babies there and been complimented on the high birth weights which reflect well on the good ante natal care he is giving.

Second morning we visited the newly completed two rooms at nursery - which look great. We presented posters for the walls to them and Lower Basic School and then gave out presents to each of the 75 nursery kids. Mostly the shoes and t shirts which came in the last Goodies for Gambia consignment.

Afternoon, we held a village meeting (attended by over 100 including Alkalos and Elders, talking about the need for them to help with funding next year. I have suggested that if they collect 5 dalasis each (around 10p) from every one
of the 20,000 local population, that will help tremendously with costs. Most agreed!

Other projects doing very well. Yesterday took Fatou from Jappineh, Abdulie and Fatou from Kunta Kinteh and Natoma from Talinding to visit Gunjur nursery. A sort of mini teachers conference. Went down very well so will arrange for
other teachers to visit each other in the New Year when school resumes after Brikama.