Today Justin and I were given the opportunity to tour through and meet with people from the Sanyang Community Health Clinic, GamMol Foundation, and a Sanyang Public School. We started our day at the health clinic where we were given a short presentation on what they do and which communities they serve. We were then given a tour of the facilities there which consists of three buildings which house a dentist office, a maternity ward, and a general admissions ward. Currently the centre is being powered by solar energy however once they are connected to the electricity which most of the community is powered by they will move the solar panels to another facility which needs them. We were informed of the improvements which they plan on making to the health clinic which includes expanding the waiting room, acquiring a new ambulance, and demolishing the maternity ward to build a new two storey building. During the tour I noticed there weren’t any patients currently being treated there however it was mentioned that as soon as malaria season starts, which is soon, the centre will be packed.
Next we moved on to meet with the directors and take a tour of the GamMol Foundation. GamMol is an NGO working out of Sanyang in The Gambia which works to provide water to small communities through pipe networks and hand pumps. Justin and I are both very much looking forward to working with this NGO as supplying clean drinking water is a necessity for rural communities. Also since the work is engineering related we will hopefully be able to bring some of the knowledge we have acquired through school to the projects.
After touring GamMol, we were given a short tour of one of the local public schools. At the school there are approximately 400 students ranging from toddlers to grade 4. Each grade has two classes resulting in there being roughly 20 students in each class and also located on campus is a small cooking area and cafeteria as children are served both breakfast and lunch each day. As we came around to each class the students sang us songs they we learning and as we left the class most students began following around. By the end of the tour most children from the school were just following us around shouting “toubab” and “what is your name?” over and over, which we had become quite accustomed to after living in the small community for almost two weeks already.
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