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
Dates for your diary:
The new school term starts on 15th September 2008
August 2008 Update:
The school has now been running successfully for five years (we opened on 6th January 2003), during that time we have grown from one class of 30 children to seven classes with 210 children and the capacity for another 60.
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). There is 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 an 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) have decided to move up into a third
level of education giving us a Nursery, a Primary and an Upper Basic school.
We have looked into this in detail and decided that it is feasible to build a new classroom block on the existing site for an Upper Basic School. This would consist of a building of 8 classrooms on two stories which would include amongst others, a Science room, English room, Domestic Science room and possibly metal and wood workshop. The school would cover three years with specialist teachers for Maths, English, Science, Social & Environment Studies and other subjects. The cost per child would be considerably higher than the current nursery and primary costs, probably in the region of £80 to £100 per child per year. The building cost would be likely to be between £35,000 and £45,000 out of which we already have reserves in the bank of over £15,000. See newsletter: DMF Newsletter 7th March 2008
This means we somehow have to raise between £20,000 and £30,000 within the next two years
WE NEED YOUR HELP TO RAISE THIS MONEY.
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 now looking for new sponsors for
Nursery 1 children who started at the school in September 2007 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 Sponsor form.doc 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.
To see some more photos of the school and the children click on this link: School Opening Photos
Anne and Mick McMath - September 2008
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, Shirley Collier and Paul McMath in the UK and Therese Cardos in The Gambia.
The Nursery school November 2007
The Primary School November 2007
The teachers March 2007 (including Liz Davis who volunteered to work at the school for 3 months)
To see how we have spent your money click on the link below:
Statement of Accounts 2005 Statement of accounts 2006.htm statement of accounts 2007.htm
Sponsorship and Gift Aid forms can be downloaded from here:
Sponsor form.doc Standing Order Form.doc Gift Aid declaration
Site last updated on 15th October 2008
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