Updated April 12th 2022.

 

Good day dear people &  to whom it might concern.

April 12th 2022. Currently we face some problems with Mr. B. Ceesay, see his mail below
Thanks for the time and wish you all the best of luck. Since it is now official, I wish to inform you to bring down the Facebook page of the Burbage Nursery School opened by you bearing your Foundarion’s logo. I wish to emphasise with the strongest possible terms that the Burbage Nursery School cannot and will not allow a Facebook page open by anyone except the school administration.

I wish to remind you that you closed the page of the Burbage Nursery School,but it is not down. The school name bearing your Foundations logo is still in existence. I will like to inform you once again that will inform the Ministry of Education about the issue, and the authorities concern and if the page still exist bearing your Foundation’s logo will be force to take the necessary actions. If it means taking step in the form of violence I will. But first will report myself to the police in the event that anything happens. I am ready to go to prison but will not allow my school name and your Foundations logo on Facebook.

The only option is the page has to be down. I am given you before the end of the week to put page down.
You blocking me was long over due. But that will not stop me from making your lives miserable any day you step you foot in the Gambia if you did not put down the Burbage Facebook page you open. Trust me you will people will forever regret meeting Buba in your life.
Thanks once again.
Bubacarr Ceesay
Proprietor and School Director.

It seems for him a big issue we still haven`t closed down the facebook page of the Burbage Nursery The Gambia in which we added since 2016 all images of the projects we did for the kids and school. After much pressure from his side to Monique and Fred we decided NOT to close down the Facebook page and keep it as it is.

Currently police people inside The Gambia are investigating his behavior and they will inform us the steps they will take for coming days.
For sure we all keep you updated these days-weeks.

Transparency is our strength.

I want to thank you guys for the support messages, but to be honest, it’s only a relief to finally be able to take the plunge. There is no further anger, at most disappointment because we would have liked to see it differently for the children. Following a message from Mr. Ceesay on his school page, I would like to add one last brief explanation. Our decision was not taken because someone donates some t-shirts, we as a foundation have no control over this of course. The beginning of a new collaboration, as described in the text, was the well-known drop for us. You know us well enough by now to know that we did not make this impulsive. There are some other things at play, which is why we have chosen to end the collaboration in order to avoid even more negativity. Among other things, contact with the teachers will be limited, so as not to cause them further problems. It is certainly not the intention to profile ourselves as the owner or anything of that kind of this school, as has been claimed by Mr. Ceesay. The good cooperation with Lamin and the other teachers arose because Mr. Ceesay was always absent from school, was busy with his political career, long-term “illnesses” and especially with himself and his phone. We deeply regret that this is being interpreted negatively by him and that it has caused problems in particular to Lamin Jammeh. It is clear that we will therefore continue to support Lamin at all times. Jealousy destroys more than you would like. Mr. Ceesay is of the opinion that we want to undermine him and his school (undermine his authority), which is obviously not true. This has no added value for our foundation.

What we do do is never accept that things disappear from boxes, mothers money is extorted because otherwise they do not receive a box or because of going on to Amazing Grace Primary School, threaten to expel the school if the mothers take a box from our Ousman and a number of other points that I would rather not mention here. So we think it would be better to give him the chance to fix everything “according to his own plan”. It was never intended to deliberately accuse him of things, only demonstrable facts have been stated by us.

Stichting Gambia Geven met Liefde – Berichten | Facebook

What we also do not accept is using schoolfee for private use-issues,

V e r t r o u w e n ~  T r u s t

Trust in … our decisions, our view of things, our call for help – which very often comes down to ‘money’, our explanation of situations sometimes difficult to understand, our call for patience ‘because it is The Gambia’, our good intentions , our commitment, our transparency as a Foundation …

Every day we are grateful that we have such a great group of people behind us, who trust us 100%. Sometimes someone drops out for whatever reason and we understand that too. A disappointment, a difficult to understand situation with a sponsor child, a private situation of the sponsor parent, negative things that we post on Facebook, not meeting (too high) expectations … All things that can end the collaboration. Fortunately, this happens only occasionally and especially after the last period in which we were able to stay upright with great difficulty, we would like to thank you for this confidence.

In 2 days we were able to collect the fantastic amount of € 1260, – to support the regular school team of the Burbage Nursery School. A brief explanation that our installment payment of school fees, which was paid on March 13, 2020 during our visit, has been entirely spent on private spending by Mr. Ceesay as he indicated in several messages. His incomprehensible explanation was enough to motivate every sponsor and hand over the salaries for the next 5 months and some extra amount for shopping. So special .. and so nice to be able to make these lovely people happy. Especially when you know that the monthly salary of a primary school teacher is around € 40.00.

Exaggerated to donate so much money? No, we don’t think so. The rent, electricity, food and study lessons must also be paid. In recent years, these teachers have worked very hard to ensure that everything runs smoothly and our rule is that no teachers’ children are sponsored. Apart from the occasional extra from us and sometimes from you, they are usually left out. Now in the Corona time there are additional problems due to this backward action by Mr. Ceesay which I cannot go into here in detail. Each sponsor is now fully notified via the Facebook sponsor page (members only). None of the teachers ask us for money, let that be clear. This has been a completely spontaneous action of ours, raising a much greater amount than we could ever have imagined. Again, everyone who contributed with Love to this .. Thank you!

We will ofcourse continue to support our sponsored children and the teachers as we always have. Other donations and / or ongoing plans regarding the Burbage Nursery School will be discontinued from now on. The school fees and lunch will continue to run smoothly under our own management and friends of ours will be visiting the school soon and reporting. There is also an investigation by the Ministry of Education (led by Mr. M. Jabbi) in which the school should meet a number of points. One of the main points is a contract for the teachers and also the organization of a parent committee. For the time being, these points for improvement requirements have not been met, which may ultimately result in a closure by order of the government.

That is why we distance ourselves from the school with pain in our hearts, but not from your children. At the moment there are still 23 sponsor children at the Burbage Nursery School and these 23 students will follow education in September 2022 at the Tree of Life Nursery which we established with the team of teachers formerly known as the Burbage team, we hope that they will eventually go on to the Amazing Grace Primary School. That is where our focus lies. We have good contact with the teachers there and will post some pictures and information again next week.

For more information about our new nursery project The Tree of Life, see the links on our website under “Projecten”.