I founded the charity Gardens for The Gambia with a headmaster of a rural Gambian primary school in 1993 to provide water for wells in the gardens of rural schools in The Gambia. The vegetables they grow provide school dinners for the poorest children in school, who would otherwise have nothing to eat all day; the surplus produce is sold and stationery and educational equipment is bought with the profit; and the children learn the basics of sustainable agriculture. The gardens are planted rather like an English allotment. They grow all sorts of vegetables and salad vegetables. Usually the school also plants an orchard of citrus trees and walnut trees. Often pupils from the senior class of these primary schools will be made responsible for the health of their particular tree. They fence it to protect it from straying animals and they water it every day from the well. We dig the wells with local labor and we go down about sixteen meters to tap clean water. We provide a rope and a bucket and—job done! It’s a beautiful little scheme that makes a difference to about two hundred children in every school and we’ve completed nearly two hundred wells. I pay for it from my own money and from donations—it’s only £300 per well [almost $400], so it’s extraordinarily good value for money in transforming the lives of the poorest people in Africa. I’m very grateful to people who donate to share this project with me.
Read more at: https://www.philippagregory.com/gardens-for-the-gambia.
GARDENS FOR THE GAMBIA
Philippa Gregory visited The Gambia, one of the driest and poorest countries of sub-Saharan Africa, in 1993 and paid for a well to be hand dug in a village primary school at Sika. Now—more than two hundred wells later—she continues to raise money and commission wells in village schools, in community gardens, and in The Gambia’s only agricultural college. She works with her representative in The Gambia, headmaster Ismaila Sisay, and their charity now funds pottery and batik classes, beekeeping, and adult literacy programs.
GARDENS FOR THE GAMBIA is a registered charity in the UK and a registered NGO in The Gambia. Every donation, however small, goes to The Gambia without any deductions. If you would like to learn more about the work that Philippa calls “the best thing that I do,” visit her website, PhilippaGregory.com, and click on GARDENS FOR THE GAMBIA, where you can make a donation and join with Philippa in this project.
Philippa Gregory
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
PHILIPPA GREGORY is the author of many
Authors.SimonandSchuster.com/Philippa-Gregory
The Women of the Cousins’ War: The Duchess, the Queen, and the King’s Mother
The Lady of the Rivers
The Red Queen
The White Queen
The Kingmaker’s Daughter
The White Princess
The Constant Princess
The King’s Curse
Three Sisters, Three Queens
The Other Boleyn Girl
The Boleyn Inheritance
The Taming of the Queen
The Queen’s Fool
The Last Tudor
The Virgin’s Lover
The Other Queen