Busura Primary School

During our last 2 visits to The Gambia we have visited Busura Primary School. Busura is the next village to Penyem and the school is the one that most Penyem children progress to for their middle year's education. They then return to Penyem Upper Basic School on the outskirts of the village. During our visits we met with the Headmaster Mr Darbo. He asked that we help him set up links with a school in the UK. We also observed the serious damage to part of the school roof. The damaged meant that the school had to be used in two 'shifts' - morning and afternoon. The Penyem children attended in the afternoon and so had to walk the 5km to Busura in the searing midday sun.

During the second half of 2010 we have been able to secure links with two schools in Corby for Mr Darbo to pursue. These are St Brendan's RC Primary School and Danesholme Junior School. St Brendan's have already collected significant amounts of pens, pencils etc for the school. Furthermore, following a fund raising event they have donated over £320 for school projects.

Following the visit of The Kingswood School students in 2010, it was decided to set about raising funds to repair the school roof. In late December, having provided the £4500 funds from some great fundraising, we have heard that the roof has been replaced and the building is well
on the way to completion. Hopefully, we will reopen it when we visit in February 2011.

Although this is a very worthy project, NTF has made it clear to all concerned that they are only able to look after the needs of Penyem Village. The Busura School project was funded from separate funds from NTF. However, NTF did contribute £500 towards the repairs and hours of time co-ordinating the work in association with Daniel Nyang, our new Gambian representative, and Chief Kolley. Any further work at Busura School will have to be funded by Mr Darbo and his staff.