The main aim these days is to provide various African children the opportunity to enjoy the game, play for our team, have fun and just keep fit. Simple really.
We trying to develop a new team based at Youna. We have a wonderful, keen team who train every Saturday and Sunday with the help of Abu and Tamba. The hall during the week is used for various school activities including school exams and Assemblies. We have a bus that Abu uses to travel to Youna.
The hall requires constant maintenance due to the conditions out there. So a further re-paint is required and we need to provide a generator to provide power to the lights and fans during evening time. The store room needs developing and made more secure. The toilets need addressing by providing some sort of soak away and a water supply. These are all long term projects that require funding.
Our challenge to bring Badminton to The Gambia
This ambitious project started early in 2004 during a general conversation about third world countries.
Everyone has heard of the plight of Africa but what about The Gambia? It is a small country dividing North and South Senegal. Just what are living conditions, employment prospects, health issues like here?
Research showed that we could make a difference to the lives of the children whose average life expectancy is 45 years of age. Running water and electricity - NO guarantees of these luxuries!! Malaria and AIDS - now that's a very different story. The children grow up in an extremely harsh environment and so we decided to try to introduce a sport to Gambian schools which is totally unknown to them.
Badminton into Schools
We liaised with the charity Gambia Tourist Support (Schools & Education) and they nominated two very different schools for us to work in. Our aim was to teach the children (aged 13 to 17 yrs) and staff the basics of Badminton so that they in turn, could 'teach' the younger students. This would create a bond between all ages within the school and give the children the chance to be on a similar level to that of their peers and adults, as they would all learn the game and progress steadily together.
The opportunity for us to work closely with GTS and the two schools and bring them closer together under the banner of sport was, and is, a fantastic one. We now aim to capitalise on our achievements.
Developing Badminton
The children at Youna Lower Basic School who are currently the age of our year 6 and 7 will now have the chance to take up the sport with the development of the hall progressing.
We want to follow the current Badminton 'squad' through to their new schools - the children age 17 to 19yrs - and introduce the sport to a wider school population. We will use their new found expertise in the game to introduce it and keep those interested playing.