Progress School

March 30, 2016
I, Mirjam Abbes, will leave for The Gambia. It is the intention to search and find children for the School for Children With Disabilities and that they will be registered.
April 11, 2016
Today we have registered the first children for the school. We have driven to three different villages. After talking with the Alkalo, the head of the village, the children were brought to us. It concerns deaf children and children who have a slight mental disability. The ages are diverse. The youngest is 4 years old, the oldest is 28 years. But they all have in common that they have never been to school. They can all start in the same group, because they will start learning the sign language. Also we meet children with a severe mental problem. They shall follow a separate program and will start at a later stage. We denote the personal information of children and parents and make a picture of them.
Let's hope we will find enough sponsor parents ...
April 22, 2016
Today we are going to Senegal to register the last children. Jiboro is very close to the Senegalese border. Again I notice how anxious these kids are. They do not know what is happening. And the way the adults around them react on them is not very encouraging. Also here the policy is: do not complain and do not cry. That is quite different from here in the Netherlands. We have registered a total of 21 children, but I'm sure we still have not met all of them. It is difficult for parents with their disabled child to act out. But I think when the school has opened its doors the threshold for parents will be lower.
August 2016.
The school is starting to shape. The building itself is ready. The floor is all tiled and looks beautiful. It is exciting to put the paint on the walls. White inside, Brown/Red outside. After the painting it immediately looks a lot better. We want to invite the parents and the children to meet and to get to know each other. Therefore we want at least one classroom to be ready. With the blackboard, the posters and some school materials it looks good.
Most of the parents and children came on the meeting day. The children still do not know what is happening and because they are deaf it is hard to explain. They are patiently waiting next to their parents and will see what is happening. Mustapha Jarju explains what the plans are with the school and what the rules are. After that the Alkalo (Mayor) of the village speaks and his message is that the parents also play a big role to make sure that the children are coming to school. Finally teacher Bakary Fatty speaks. I do not understand much of what he says because the local language is spoken but you can see on the faces of the parents that everybody agrees and that it is clear.
I make some pictures and think it is a shame we cannot start yet. The terrain is not yet ready. We will have to wait for that. A starting date for the lesson has been set: November 9, 2016.
November 2016
I am leaving for The Gambia again. This time it will be extra exciting because we will open the school. Not officially, but we are going to teach.
I use my first week in Gambia to prepare everything. Copying teaching materials, buying lesson supplies, cleaning and making a teaching plan with teacher Bakary Fatty.
November 7 is there. The doors open and there are 4 children at the door. Two deaf children, who are somewhat older and 2 brothers who have a light mental problem. 2 Hours later the 4 year old Jainaba steps in. Still as scared as the first time I met her. She sits on my lap and would love to stay there for the next 3 weeks.
Then the problem arises of witch I have been thinking about for the past few weeks: How do you explain to the children why they are here? But I worried for nothing because it is all going very smoothly. Then I also notice how easy is goes even with a great age difference in the group. The older ones are leading the younger ones.
Bakery and I are working together for 3 weeks and are trying to find a way in teaching to deaf children as well as to children with a mental problem. As long as I am here all goes well because we split up the children. But later on Bakary will have to do it on his own.
I notice that it is hard for the Gambian to accept children with a disability. I was hoping on a collaboration with the nursery school, adjacent to our building. In the beginning it was difficult. Not because of the children but because of the teachers. Only when I explained that it is good for both parties to play with each other, the playing gets easier. I learned the children of the nursery school some sign language and the deaf children found that very interesting. Next time I will be here I will invite groups of children from the nursery school to our classes to follow our lessons.
After 3 weeks I returned to Holland. I did not want to go because I see how fragile everything still is. The teaching will be OK. Bakary is skilled enough. But a lot of time will have to be spend on the child with a disability in The Gambia.
Meanwhile a date has been set for the official opening: March 4, 2017

August 2017
In July 2016 the doors of the school for children with a disability, closed. Time for a holiday. And time to look back on what we have done the first school year. 
November 2016 we started with a small class of deaf children. The children all entered at a different time so every time the lessons had to start all over again. Luckily the children are very patient and they did not mind. We started with  teacher Bakary Fatty and in March we hired an education assistant, David,  who himself is in a wheelchair. He therefor is a good example to the children that  life does not stop when you have a handicap.
March 4th 2017 we had the official opening.Very exciting. Many high placed persons and the television were present. The building has become beautiful.Everything is tiled and therefor easy to clean. Nice furniture and real blackboards on the wall, educational posters and school material.
After March 2017 we had most of the children at school. We divided them in 4 groups.
1. A group of 4/5 year deaf children
2. A group of children with a light mental problem
3. A group of elderly deaf children who learn quick and easy. These children are tutored on Monday through      Thursday.
 4. Two brothers of which it was clear that they could not follow the other groups. They needed so much                 attention that we decided to teach them separately. On Friday.
For the teacher it is quite demanding to help so many different levels in one classroom. The morning starts the same for all the children. One full hour of sign language where they learn especially the signs for everything you can see/find on a picture. Or we all bring certain objects to school. So we had, right before the vacation, a lesson with all the different fruits that are available in The Gambia. Or the gestures for all the school-stuff, animals, family members, colors, etc, etc..
After that hour David will continue with the youngest children. He will practice the things they do not know so well. The rest will continue with the gestures for the letters of the alphabet, the days of the week, the numbers from 1 to 20.
After the break the youngest ones will play, color, puzzle. The other 2 groups will get assignments in their exercise book. Writing, math, spelling or drawing.
The 2 brothers also learn sign language. They can greet and say thank you in sign language. They know some gestures for animals and school-stuff. They puzzle a lot and color. They also do concentration games. With these 2 boys I see an enormous difference. The first weeks they came to school and broke about everything they had their hands on and kept running out of the classroom, now they can sit for two hours and be busy. In the village they know how to behave themselves and are therefor more excepted. They feel safe within our 4 walls and because of that they are more available.
In September 2017 the new school year will start and of course we have new plans. Each child will have his/her own pencil case with his/her own things so they will learn to take care of that. They will also get a notebook with assignments on his/her own level for the first trimester. 
​Parents will be invited 1 to 2 times a week to join the class, participate and also learn the sign language.We will continue to invite the children of the Nursery school to join us on Thursday morning and also learn a bit of sign language. 
I myself will go to The Gambia to help open the new school year, to make a new year plan and to set up the contacts with the parents of these children.
I am anxious to go and am looking forward to see the children again.
​Mirjam Abbes 

November 2017
Dear Friends and Sponsors,
 I am already a couple of weeks back from the Gambia. But I still would like to tell how everything went.
The school year started in September (2017). It took a while before we really could get started because the rainy season made the garden look like a jungle. And on the day that we actually wanted to start it rained cats and dogs so hard that completely stopped life in the Village. No transport, no people going to work and a lot of water on the road. So it was a necessary day of for me.
It was very nice to see the children again on their first day. They were very happy with the pencil case that I took with me for them. Each pencil case filled with stuff and with their own name on it.
We have taken enormous steps. Through all the toys that were collected by the Paradijsvogel in Vogelenzang, Holland, we could set up a real playroom. And the youngest children can play in this room after the break. What a party. Children are not used to playing with toys in Gambia. So sharing and choosing is already very difficult. The girls immediately adopted a doll and a cart. And then you will see the mother instinct immediately with Gambian girls. With the difference that the dolls were immediately tied up their back’s. When school starts at 9 o'clock the youngest children are already at the door of the playroom and it is quite another task to get them to the classroom first.
The teacher is now using a fixed schedule. First an hour of sign language for all children together. That is going very well. The first day everybody had to get used to everything again, but from the second day everyone knew again. After that the children work in different groups. Games, arithmetic or even more sign language. After half an hour it is a break. Some children do not want to go outside and just want to continue with the lesson. For them I have booklets with pictures, my laptop with pictures, or just a game of memory, mikado or puzzling.
After the break, the youngest go out with David, the classroom assistant to play, and then there is time for the elders to work in their books.
All in all, I am satisfied. I know that the teacher Bakary sometimes thinks: what does she want now ?? But he is trying his utmost and never says no. And once he has tried it, he is happy too. I understand that it is difficult, people are used to teaching in class. But with 15 children on 6 levels that is not possible.
Then there is always a group waiting for another group. And I have to smile when he makes a compliment about me to my taxi driver.
The village is also getting used to working with deaf and mentally retarded people. Sometimes they ask what the gesture is for something. And when one morning I turn around in class and I see that the cleaning lady Jarra is standing in front of the plate and explaining a gesture to the children, I am pleasantly surprised.
What I want to work on in the coming period is that the children do know gestures, but do not put them into practice yet. For some of them it is still unclear that they learn those gestures to communicate. That is quite difficult because you cannot explain it because they are deaf. So I'm happy with every donkey, chicken and cow that walks past the room.
On my Facebook page there are also some videos with the children who are practicing the sign language.
Thank you again for the sponsorship.
Regards,
Mirjam Abbes