THE DON McMATH FOUNDATION

Latest Newsletter:DMF Newsletter 26th March 2009

Follow the link to see the current and all the past newsletters DMF Newsletters

UK Registered Charity Number: 1100164

Gambia Registered Charity Number: 733/2002

Anne McMath has been coming to The Gambia since 1996 and over the years has come to realise that many children do not attend school because their parents are too poor to be able to send them. She started to sponsor a few children herself and some of her friends did the same. The children that are sponsored come from poor, illiterate families but through education have a chance to break out of the cycle of poverty. Anne has visited many schools in The Gambia and has seen a few with good facilities, but most have very little, the worst she visited had 67 children in a class, no desks, few books and most of the teaching was done on the blackboard, by unqualified teachers, Anne then had the idea of setting up a new school.

Her vision is to have a well-equipped school, with qualified teachers, starting with 4 to 6 year olds eventually building up to classes for 12 to 13 year olds. The enthusiasm for education in The Gambia is awesome from both children and parents. So much so that in December 2005 we started an adult literacy class for their families.

We achieved the first part of this vision when the school opened on 6th January 2003. The school has been named in memory of Anne’s husband and Mick’s brother Don McMath who was head of Maths at Hamden Park Secondary School in Eastbourne until his death in 1991. We started with one class of 30 children, this increased to two classes in April 2003 and opened our third and fourth classes in January 2004. This brought us up to 98 pupils and reached the capacity of the rented school building.

We were given a lease for the plot of land by the Gambian Government and started building the new school in December 2004, amazingly enough the school was completed a mere four months later in April 2005 and was opened in July (we had to wait for about 3 months to get the water connected!). The official opening ceremony was on 28th November 2005 (see 15th December 2005 newsletter for more details of the opening.

This completed Phase 2 of the vision with the brand new school with 6 classes, which gives us a capacity of 180 children. In September 2006 we admitted another 30 pupils which brought us up to this capacity.

To achieve our dream of a school which will take in children at 4 and educate them through to 13 we needed to have the second school building with 4 new classrooms designed, built and finished by May 2007. The latest news is that the new building is now complete and the three nursery classes have moved in. Thanks to everyone that contributed to the building. The official opening ceremony took place on Wednesday 14th November 2007.

The new school building March 2007

How to find the school

Dates for your diary 2009:

The important dates for our fund raising this summer are: Verwood Garden Party Sunday 5th July at 76 Manor Road, Bexhill Garden Party 6th September, note this will be back at Anne’s house in Penland Road again. Verwood Charity Shoot Sunday 30th August at Manor Farm, Verwood and Verwood Rustic Fayre where Mick and Judy will once again have a stall on Bank Holiday Monday 31st August.

March 2009 Update:

The school has now been running successfully for six years (we opened on 6th January 2003), during that time we have grown from one class of 30 children to eight classes with 240 children and the capacity for another 30.

As things stand in 2010 we will have the first children leaving our school ready to go to the next level of education (Upper Basic which is the equivalent of UK GCSE level). We had a concern that the children may then either finish their full time education or end up in schools where they have to take a backward step as they will have been well educated at DMF and could find themselves at schools with classes of 60 children getting a lower level of education.

We have taken the opportunity to build and open an upper basic school to allow our pupils to continue their education for another three years to get them through their School Leaving Certificates. To do this we (the trustees) decided to move up into a third level of education giving us a Nursery, a Primary and an Upper Basic school.

We are now more than halfway through the process of building a new classroom block on the existing site for an Upper Basic School. This will consist of a building of 6 classrooms which would include amongst others, a Science room, English room, Domestic Science room and possibly metal and wood workshop. The school will cover three years with specialist teachers for Maths, English, Science, Social & Environment Studies and other subjects. The cost per child will be considerably higher than the current nursery and primary costs, probably in the region of £80 to £100 per child per year. The cost to complete the building is in the region of £12,000 to £13,000 which we have to raise by April next year. We are most grateful to Verwood Rotary, Chantry Community Primary School, Mike Keeley, Peter and Alex Killick of The Brazz Restaurant in Eastbourne and Richard Freeman and Roger Bruton from The Artful Bodgers who between them have donated a total of over £4,000 to the school over the last few months. This has nearly given us enough to complete the first stage of the build.

WE NEED YOUR HELP TO RAISE MONEY FOR THE SCHOOL.

If you feel that you can help in any way either by donating money or by holding fund raising events yourself then please get in touch with us at dmf@dsl.pipex.com or by phoning Mick or Judy on 01202 823317.

We are also continually looking for new sponsors, we need to keep increasing the number of sponsors we have to ensure the future of the school. We are looking for new sponsors for Nursery 1 children who started at the school in September 2008 who would be willing to sponsor one or more children and who would pledge at least £60 per year for the next 3 years or more.

If you feel you can help then please print and fill in the Sponsorship form and send it to The Don McMath Foundation at: 76 Manor Road, Verwood, Dorset, BH31 6EA or if you want more information you can speak to Mick or Judy on 01202 823317. If you are a UK taxpayer then please also download and print the Gift Aid declaration form, as we are a registered UK Charity we can reclaim 28p from the Inland Revenue for each £1 donated to us. Note that all the money raised goes to the Gambia and is spent on the school. Our total expenses last year for stationery etc. were less than 3% of our income.

Anne and Mick McMath - June 2009

Click here to hear the school song - Don McMath Song

Email: dmf@dsl.pipex.com

The trustees of the Foundation are: Anne McMath, Mick McMath, Judy McMath, Graham Cook, Nick Marshall and Paul McMath in the UK and Therese Cardos in The Gambia.

The Nursery school December 2008