Nyodema - Helping Each Other

Well, well, who would have thought it? One of our staff, Kathy Burrington has won prestigious 2008 AITO Achievement in Responsible Tourism Award for her charitable work in The Gambia – the first time the award has been given to an individual rather than a company.

Kathy set up Nyodema  – which means ‘helping people’ in Mandinka, a West African language – in 2007 after many years of sponsoring a Gambian child, Lisa.  She and some friends finally decided they would like to do more to support Lisa and her local area so set up a music festival in Bognor Regis to raise funds. The festival was such a success that since then other gigs have taken place including a second festival last year. Another is already scheduled for August this year.

The money raised so far has been used in a variety of ways, such as:

• 120 insecticide-treated mosquito nets distributed to Gambian children in Brikama (bringing the total to date of 260 nets)
• 40 teachers at two Gambian schools have been trained in ‘Jolly Phonics’ – a method of teaching English widely used throughout the UK educational system
• Sponsorship for one Gambian teacher, enabling her to finish her teacher training course
• First-aid training for five Gambian teachers

Gambian children leaning English - 'jolly phonics' style! Photo from {link:http://www.flickr.com/photos/nyodema/}Nyodema Flickr Stream{/link}

If you would like to keep up to date with Nyodema and their programme of events then please visit their MySpace and Facebook pages. There is also a good deal of information at the main Gambia site. Lastly, you can see some of Kathy’s fantastic images – of The Gambia, the Nyodema gigs and more – on her Flickr page.