By Ali Calvert

The Mariama Mae Pre-school is celebrating. A lot has been happening in the past twelve months. The latest big event is brand new metal playground equipment, which all the children and staff love.

This wonderful playground was made possible by a very dear friend of mine Sue, who came out to visit the school with me in February this year.  Unknown to me she had been raising funds from family, friends and colleagues who wanted to do some sort of project for the school.  I would at this point like to thank all of those people for providing our school with one of the happiest pieces of equipment it has ever received.  Thank you.

After a week of living and being in school with Fatou (our head teacher) Sue and Fatou had decided on their project.  Their first port of call was to visit the Iron Man in Brikarma, a much larger town a bush taxi ride away, who would be making and supervising the installation of the playground. After talking with him Sue and Fatou now knew how much equipment could be bought, so all that was left to decide was what was needed, where it would be placed in the playground and to arrange transport, cement and labour and to make sure everything was safely installed.

All of this came to a little over Sue’s budget but I had been given some money from my local charity shop here in Porthleven which made it possible to complete the playground. Thank you Winston.

Unfortunately our visit was over before the playground equipment had arrived so we had to wait patiently to receive photographs of the finished project. My heart sang when I saw the photographs. The school now has a fantastic outside play area which is more than we could have dreamed of. Thank you.

You will see by the pictures that the school walls are gradually being brightly decorated and this is thanks to Jo and Butch who have directed some of their youth project teams to the Mariama Mae School, and therefore we would also like to say a big thank you to everyone who has helped with this.

The school, both inside and outside, is looking good. It was completely repainted this year and has been maintained to a high standard, which is important if we want to be taken seriously as a school looking to make changed in pre-school education and to show that every penny is spent on providing as good a school as possible.

I am very proud of the Mariama Mae School and want to say thank you to everyone connected to it especially to all those who donate monthly, because without your support our school would not exist. You really are the foundations of the school and always have been. Your commitment is what pays wages, maintains the building, buys essential equipment and enables Fatou and her staff to have the security of knowing they have a school to teach in. Thank you for all your help.

As I said Sue spent time in school with us which was lovely but also very useful to me and helpful to see the school through fresh eyes. What I was reminded of by Sue was how calm our school is and how able the children are to complete tasks set for them and how automatically they help each other and explain things to each other. Something which sounds fundamental, but is not always found in Gambian Pre-schools. Here, in our school, children are actively given responsibility and allowed space to discuss their own learning. I know we are doing a good job and the children that pass through the Mariama Mae School are getting a comprehensive and full education.

My next concert is to make sure that all the staff continue to be inspired and that they have the time and energy put into their development.

By Ali Calvert

This is a well overdue update on the Mariama Mae Pre-School; sorry it has taken so long. We have been busy building a secure perimeter wall and a strong metal entrance gate. Glad to say this is now complete and looking good. We hope in the future to be able to plant Bougainvillea, (a fast growing flowering climber) up the walls to provide a bright environment.

Because of this building work the school has gained extra playground space which Fatou Janneh, the head teacher, has been creatively filling, a children’s garden where they can learn to plant, grow and care for food crops; a fabulous area playground area with climbing bars, swings and balance beams; a wonderful sandpit, and Fatou’s latest addition is a water play trough. All of these have been colourfully painted and are in non-stop use. The children are delighted with these new activities and wanting to use them at every opportunity. 

I spent a lovely half hour just watching the children on all this new equipment.  I wish I could capture the joy that the children find in this simple play. The delight and the laughter they share as they experiment and get involved in these activities is beautiful; if you just sit and observe you see how much learning is taking place.

I cannot praise the staff enough for the continual commitment to their children and the school in general. Everyone is working hard, constantly improving themselves and the school through attending The Early Years Training Course at Gambia College. Fatou, who started in class 1, has just completed her three years training, is now working closely with her head teacher gaining experience to enable her to teach both classes 2 and 3, well done Fatou. We welcome Bintu, our new class 1 teacher, who I feel will bring a lot of vibrant positive energy both to her class and to the school. She has just begun her training. Tako our class 3 teacher has now settled very well into the school, she has a very calm approach and her children respond well to her as she prepares them to move to Lower Basic School. Tako is now in her second year at college and enjoying it very much. 

In all the teachers you can see a keenness to learn and share new ideas that going to the college gives them. It is a pleasure to see these ideas being brought back into the classroom with enthusiasm to benefit the children. 

All the staff are teaching a broad based comprehensive level of early years education. They understand the importance that the children are given the opportunity to learn through varied creative and physical activities. I am very proud of everyone involved who help to achieve this; that is not to say there aren’t the usual hiccups in maintaining a school in Africa. 

At this point I like to think “if only people could see for themselves”: This has happened this year, two separate families have gone out for a visit to the school. It was a real positive for everyone, I ws delighted that people wanted to go, see for themselves, it also gives a boost to the staff that others are interested in their work. 

I would like to thank everyone for their continued support in making Mariama Mae Pre-School what it is - a really lovely school. I would like to thank everyone involved in the curry evening, a fundraising event that took place at Roger and Honors. It was amazing, thank you for all your hard work, what a wonderful evening. 

Our school is developing into a place where practical real learning can take place within firm foundations for the staff and children, growing and encouraging confidence and furthering education within their community.

By Alison Calvert, founder of the Mariama Mae Nursery School

Honor and Roger, two very dear friends of mine, live and work in  Jerez in the south of Spain. Last year they put on a curry evening to raise money for the school with the help of Hansa, and her mum Pushpa, who flew over from London just to bring spices and cook for days.  By popular demand they were doing it all again and in April I flew over to join them due to a ticket that had very kindly been donated to me so that I could be there.

What a team they are!  When I arrived we all sat around their kitchen table to have a ‘kilo meeting’, deciding how many kilos of tomatoes, potatoes and all sorts of other vegetables we needed.  This resulted in a trip to the wonderful local market the next day where boxes of local vegetables were bought and then delivered round the corner to Roger and Honor’s beautiful home that they were opening to over 120 people who had bought tickets for “The Grand Curry Night Fundraiser”.

Before the 8.30pm start on Friday the most beautiful food had been prepared under the guidance of Hansa and Pushpa who calmly made a wide range of mouth watering delicious starters, all had been sampled beforehand just to make sure they were ok of course!  These were then followed by curries to die for with wonderful flavours and extras all authentically made and displayed.  Honor and Roger had also made their speciality to add to the menu, a beef curry and chicken tikka with the most incredible flavours.  For desert they had prepared mango ice cream and gulabjamans which were incredibly popular.

People's comments said it all: “this food is out of this world”, “I’ve never tasted Indian food like this before”, “This is so good, how do they do it and there is so much choice”.

Everyone, including Roger and Honor’s kids, Tom and Alex, and their mates, had worked so hard together as a team to make this fundraiser the wonderful success that it was.  The people who had come to the event had a wonderful evening and were very generous when buying raffle tickets for batiks that I had brought from Africa, and local donated bottles of sherry and brandy.

This was just such a great evening and I felt so lucky to be there, not just for the food, but for the fun of preparing it beforehand, and the opportunity to talk to people who had come last year and then again this year.  It was fantastic to be able to show them photos of what their donations had achieved and talk to them about what we would be able to do with this years £2600 that they had raised, thankyou everyone.  See you all next year!

By Alison Calvert, founder of the Mariama Mae Nursery School

I travelled to Wadebridge in Cornwall in June to the home of Nigel, Glenda and Noel who had generously organised a magnificent garage sale. 

As I turned the corner I was met with a flurry of wonderful bunting filling their end of the street, and a crowd of people around tables piled high with donated items for sale.  There was a real buzz around the garage entrance where Nigel had displayed photos and information about the school, and people were more than generous when buying items for sale.  People were then tempted into their beautiful garden where more items were for sale along with tea, coffee and cake which most people couldn’t resist.

The sale was due to start at 10am but way before that people were eyeing up a bargain or two and there was a steady stream of customers until about 2.30pm, with people coming back for a second time bringing friends along.  Nigel had invited friends and family to an evening mid summer party and he had worked so hard to prepare food and punch and to create a great atmosphere and they all gave generously which certainly paid off as they raised a total of £440.  

Thank you all for putting on such a fantastic event and helping the school in this way, and thankyou to all the people who came to buy or donate on the day.