Track record
Since Jan 2021 GSS has grown rapidly from assisting 2 to 13 schools:
- Feb 2021 restored and turned around the failing Pirang Nursery School
- Mar 2021 took responsibility for Bakary Sanbouya Nursery School from a UK charity that could no longer continue to support the school
- Sept 2021 founded and created a new school, the Brufut ECD, in a joint venture with MoBSE (Ministry of Basic & Secondary Education)
- Mar 2022 turned around the failing Good Shepherd Nursery School, Pirang who had lost its sponsor some years previously
- July 2022 secured the future of the Makumbaya Nursery School whose sponsor could no longer continue
- Sept 2022 secured the future of 4 schools – Mariama Mae (Gunjur), Stepping Stones (Keitaya), HENS (Talinding) and the Jappineh Nursery School
- Oct 2022 restored and turned around the failing Santo Su nursery school in Brufut
- July 2024 refurbished and improved the struggling Madina Pipeline Nursery
- Jan 2025 restoration work started to turn around the fortunes of the failing Madina Talokoto Nursery
At the same time GSS has:
- Implemented one of the best teacher training and development programs in The Gambia, thereby creating a cohort of excellent pre-primary teachers and Head Teachers;
- Funded 8 teachers to qualify ECD at Gambia University and 2 others to gain their Higher ECD Diploma
- Today the project provides good nursery education for 1,768 children of which GSS sponsors with free places 350 (20%) children from backgrounds of acute hardship or are disabled
- Set up Year 1 classrooms at all 13 schools with educational toys for ‘learning through play’, tiled the floors, equipped with play mats and trained the Year 1 staff;
- Built an effective local implementing partner organisation (GSP), who are helping to increase the independence and self-reliance of the schools;
- Adopted the UNICEF indicator (SDG 4.2.1) the ECDI2030. This is a method of assessing the development of the children which will enable us to demonstrate the effectiveness of the GSS project.