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When Geoff and Di Miles visited the Gambia in 2007 to learn African djembe from a master drummer there, they became friendly with a mostly musician community in Kotu- Eranjang. They met a wonderful man called Kebba Jaina who had set up a nursery school for 3 - 7 year olds in his community as there was no education available for them. He was concerned that, having so little opportunity to become educated and earn a living, the youth of The Gambia were starting to turn to drugs. Drug barons from South America have bought up large areas of land in the neighbouring country of Guinea Bissau as an easy route into Europe. Consequently more and more hard drugs were finding their way into The Gambia.
Kebba believed that if he could teach young children to enjoy education, to want to learn, and find a way out of poverty, he could do something very real to help the children of his community. In order to set up the school, he had rented a single room building, with 1 communal toilet. He had moved several times as landlords found other more lucrative uses for buildings. Geoff and Di raised money and bought the school benches so that when they moved at least they would have benches for the children to sit on.
Sadly, Kebba died in March 2008 but his dream lives on.
Geoff and Di set up Afrikaya, whose first project is to buy land a build a nursery school in a community in The Gambia. At the point of updating this on 31 July 2010, we can report that we are just a few days away from purchasing land (30 x 60 metres), being registered as a charity in The Gambia and signing a MOU with the Gambian Education Department!!
Kebba Jaina gave Geoff and Di his full support and permission to take and display all school photographs used on this site.
Afrikaya is a charity (registration number 1132367) regulated by the UK Charity Commissioners. For more information about Afrikaya, please click here.
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