The Adventist Development and Relief Agency Gambia (ADRA) yesterday donated one hundred combined tables and chairs to Kabafita Lower Basic School in Brikama at a presentation ceremony held at the school grounds.
Speaking at the handing-over ceremony, the board chairman of the agency, Pastor Karamba Jassey expressed gratitude in partnering with the school.
According to him, this is the first face of the project aimed at boosting education in the school.
He said that ADRA is a private voluntary agency established in 1956 and renamed in 1984 from its predecessor, the Seventh Day Adventist World Service that has a presence in more than 125 countries.
According to Pastor Jassey, ADRA works to achieve positive change without regard to ethnicity or religious affiliation and to empower the most vulnerable segments of society through provision of development and relief services.
“The agency also seeks to build a future that is characterised by equity, opportunity, and freedom of choice, responsible stewardship of resources, and individual and collective security,” he said.
Pastor Jassey added that the agency’s network implemented relief and development programmes valued at more than US$207 million and benefiting nearly 20 million people worldwide.
He said that its relief agency’s sector of activity include emergency response, food security, primary health care, HIV/AIDS, water and sanitation, child survival, basic education and economic development.
For his part, the programme director, Pastor Emmanuel Tawiah Tetteh, said education is key but government alone cannot provide it.
He said they intervened by donating one hundred combined tables and chairs to complement government’s effort at letting every child have access to education.
He assured the gathering that very soon the rmaining two hundred combined chairs and tables will be finished as the second phase of the project, which would help in providing a learning environment conducive for children.
The chairman of the school, Memba Jawara, said the school is very grateful to ADRA, who responded to their appeal for assistance less than a month ago.
The head teacher of the school, Ebrima Jallow, who chaired the occasion, said the school was founded in 1980 as a community school, which now has fifty-one classrooms, eighty-five teachers and nearly three thousand students.
