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| Auntie Fatou Saneh and child |
In 2011 my wife and I visited The Gambia and were fortunate to meet Mr 'Mucki' Mucktarr Bojang the founder of the Mansa-Colley Bojang School in near Brikama. The school was founded in 2009 to meet the needs of the village of Jalanbang, where many of children were not receiving any primary education. With charitable assistance from overseas, the hard work of the paid and volunteer staff, and the support of the village chief and Imam, the school is doing well.
However, meeting Mucki again in 2013 it became clear that further help would benefit the children. My wife and I asked friends and family to help us raise money to buy school equipment. We created the 'Toubab Bumsters' blog to keep folk informed of progress and booked a trip for December. We raised £1,300 which will be used to buy text books for the older children.
We stayed for a few days at the school and I recorded some of what we experienced. I tried to avoid too many cliched images of smiling kids (difficult as the kids were charming and smiled an awful lot !) instead looking to a combination of posed portraits and reportage to capture some of the atmosphere of the place. While I am pleased with the quality of the images in hindsight I would approach the assignment with a more structured focus. When I go back to the school I will concentrate on portraiture.
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| Night Watch Man, Mr Ebrahim Barr |
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| Nursery C teacher Auntie Charlotte Mendy |
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