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Duty Waiver Requests are Slow in Coming; The Garden Project in Mbaye Kunda Gets Started

With less than a week left before Shelby comes back to the United States, a great deal of work is being done on The Book Project, The Garden Project, and the Micro Lending Project.

The container arrived in the port of Banjul on February 18th, almost two months after it was filled with books and medical supplies by Seattle volunteers and set off on its journey. The process of receiving duty waivers for the items in the container has been difficult this year – requiring six meetings with government officials and numerous documents. (We are able to secure waivers of the fee each year because we donate health and educational supplies to organizations throughout the country, and are not bringing in goods for resale.) In the past, we were able to receive clearance from the various officials relatively easy. This year, we apparently arrived just in time to take part in the implementation of a new, more stringent procedure.

The container had to wait in the port in Banjul until we received final approval of our duty waiver from the Department of Finance and Economic Affairs. We had already received the application for a duty waiver from the Director of Basic Education Services, and then, the Permanent Secretary of Education signed off. We waited on the Department of Finance to access our goods and begin the delivery process.

While waiting for the container documents to come through, Shelby met with the Gambian Peace Corps Director Tom Morgan and Yamai Secka-Jack, Associate Director of Education, to discuss distribution and delivery of the books. As we have done for the past two years, GambiaHELP is partnering with the Peace Corps in order to distribute books to needy schools. We ensure that we deliver books to schools in every region of The Gambia, and expand delivery to schools whom we have not given to before. Shelby met with the Peace Corps officials to discuss this list of recipient schools, explore the duties of Peace Corps volunteers on this project, and establish a delivery time frame.

Shelby also met with Beatrice Prom, a Peace Corp staff person, who provides GambiaHELP with purses made by village women to sell in the Seattle area. The purses are small multi-colored rectangles with a top zipper. They are made from recycled plastic bags and are often sold at the Gambian tourist markets. Making these purses is a small business enterprise for these women, helping them bring cash into the village for food and education fees for their children. (If you are interested in purchasing these purses, please contact the GambiaHELP office.)

Shelby contacted the Secretary-General of the Red Cross and told him that the container is in and that he should expect delivery on Monday. They will send people to pick up the wheelchairs donated by the Seattle-Gambia Association and receive donated clothing from GambiaHELP. The clothing will be used for refugees living in the country.

We hope to receive final duty waiver approval today. In any case, we have asked for an expedited delivery of the container so we can get the items delivered before Shelby leaves for the U.S. on Wednesday. We plan to off-load the container in Kanifing at the Book Production Unit tonight. Laborers are ready and the Peace Corps, Red Cross, Medical & Health and Education Departments have been notified when they can pick up their donations. Most organizations will arrive at the Book Production Unit on Monday to receive their items. A handing-over ceremony is planned for that morning.

Exciting news came when we learned today that we can access the funds for The Garden Project in Mbaye Kunda. (The Bellevue Rotary, in Bellevue, Washington, is sponsoring this wonderful project.) It had taken longer than we had expected for the check to reach us here, but now we can begin the project in earnest. We will travel up-country to Mbaye Kunda thanks to the generosity of the Gambia Civil Aviation Authority, which is donating a van. It will be a hard trip since the roads are very bad and the dust is incredible right now. Morro Nyang, Suma, Isatou, and Shelby will make this difficult trip to Mbaye Kunda to begin the Garden Project. The plan is to meet the Imam, Akalo, and to initially inform them of the women's garden project funding at a community gathering. We will be bringing some garden tools with us. We will purchase them in Soma (up-country) where we can get better prices.

While we are up-country, we will go to Basse to deliver the books targeted for Nasir Senior Secondary School. (We worked at Nasir last year, establishing a computer lab with the help of students from Seattle’s Garfield High School.) The Headmaster, Mamadi Ceesay, is awaiting our arrival.

When the group returns from up-country, Kumuna (Shelby’s Gambian sister) will have returned from her journey to Mecca. Shelby is eager to hear about this journey, one that Kumuna has dreamt of for many years.

Beverly Harrington continues to work interviewing credit unions, the national association, and others about small lending practices and the differences between Village Savings Banks, Credit Unions and the Social Development Fund. We are deciding on which model will work best as part of the Micro Lending Project in Dankunku. She has done a lot of research which will be incredibly useful later.