My involvement with The Gambia started during a short holiday there in 1993, when quite by chance I visited the somewhat remote village of Nyofelleh. It's a poor country, but the people are delightful and I spent much of the remaining part of my holiday at the village getting to know them, their life style, needs and so on.

Without knowing quite how and with limited personal funds, I decided to build a school in the belief that the future of The Gambia depends largely on educating the children of today.

The Nyofelleh Primary School opened within a year with 90 Children on the roll, two untrained teachers and no equipment other than a blackboard and some chalk. That was a great day. I'm happy to say that with help from friends and colleagues the school has prospered. There are now five teachers and the roll has risen to 350 happy children.

Along the way it was all too obvious that the people of Nyofelleh and the surrounding villages lacked even the most basic medical help. And so The Derek Bailey Foundation, as we have now become, decided to build a Medical Centre offering simple medicines. Little did we know at the time that the underlying need for medical care was far beyond our expectations.

Fortunately, the list of friends willing to help is gradually growing. But we cannot fund all the improvements to the school, or the much needed further development of the Medical Center, as matters stand at the moment.

The people of Nyofelleh and the surrounding villages need a little extra help.

The following pages will hopefully give you some idea of what has been achieved so far - and what still needs to be done.

J oan Bailey
Chairman