Couple just months away from achieving ambition

An Aldingbourne couple are just months away from achieving their ambition of spreading the joy of learning.

David and Patricia Underwood's dream of ensuring villagers in the Gambia can equip themselves with the skills for life is about to become a reality.

A primary school in Kanubeh has been almost completed by the residents with materials devoted by Mr and Mrs Underwood's charity, Gambia Upcountry Development.

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Mrs Underwood, of Church Road, said: "If they are educated, the villagers can be part of the wider world.

"There is a road which the government has built through their compounds and which they can use to travel elsewhere to make a living."

The couple have a donation of 150 chairs, some desks and cabinets from a Burgess Hill school ready to be shipped to the Gambia.

All that is needed to put the equipment to its new use is donations to hire a container on a merchant vessel.

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They can be made to the www.gambiaupcountry.com website. The items will have to stay in storage without the money.

Once the equipment arrives, the 3,000-plus mainly illiterate villagers will be able to satisfy their top priority of being educated.

Up to 150 youngsters, aged four to six, will be able to have lessons in the school's three rooms. The older children will then be able to move on to a school in a village six kilometres away for further lessons.

Evenings will see the rooms used for adult education. The charity will fund the school for three years.

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Kanubeh's current economy depends upon subsistence farming of peanuts, couscous and vegetables during the rainy season of July to September. Some villagers seek unskilled work elsewhere to bring in some income.

They have benefited from the more than 10,000 raised by Gambia Upcountry Development since they started it in April 2007.

The charity has financed two huts in Kanubeh which can be used as B&Bs to attract visitors and produce income as part of the plan to make the villagers self-sufficient.

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