The Friendship Exchange is a pen-pal program, which partners Gambian school students with their counterparts in the United States. Our first participating schools were Martin Luther King, Jr. Elementary School in Seattle, WA, and Dankunku Primary School in The Gambia. Twenty-one students exchanged drawings and letters with each other.

In 2001, we added the following schools: Neely-O'Brien Elementary School in Burien, WA; North Creek Day School in Bothell, WA; Stevenson Elementary in Bellevue, WA; and the University of Washington Chemistry Department.

Additionally we were joined by La Pietra Girls School in Honolulu, HI. This group also sent 33 boxes of books for primary, secondary and adult reading levels. This collection grew out of a school visit by RPCV Jane Dewell (The Gambia '81-'83).

Our pen-pal school in 2003 is North Creek Day School. However, Neely-O'Brien, Stevenson, UW and La Pietra have continued to donate books for the Book Project.

In 2004 we were fortunate to receive wonderfully crafted pen-pal letters from several schools in the Seattle area including Greenwood Elementary School, Eckstein Middle School and Lake Forest Park Montessori Academy with students at Dankunku Basic Cycle School. In total, 200 letters were exchanged. The Headmaster from Dankunku Basic Cycle School, Ansumana Sanneh, was thrilled to receive the letters. GambiaHELP also provided hundreds of pens and pencils for the students to write with at school.

Each year I am struck with the impression of how lucky we are in the US to have ready access to pens, pencils and paper. the children often times beg for pens from strangers and are often challenged to bring these critical learning tools to school. We will collect pens and pencils again for Gambian school children this year. If you are interested in donating these critical tools for Gambian school children – start your collection now for the December 2006 shipment.

We are currently expanding this program to include additional schools; if you know of a class that might be interested, please contact info@gambiahelp.org.The purpose of GambiaHELP is to enable communities in The Gambia to improve their health and education and to build a sustainable economy and environment.

To make a cash donation to this project use the Pay Pal link below.

Click to see a gallery of other penpal letters. The gallery is only a small portion of the actual letters. The letters were all beautifully done and just amazing, but some needed to be left out because they contained personal, identifying information about the children and were not posted to protect their identities.