Thursday 4 June - Day ? (nearly 3 months now)

Just got the page to load in the internet cafe and the power has gone, so I'm working from the 9 mins battery I have on my laptop (it's an old battery now) and the battery in the satellite internet connection kit. It's hot now and I'm feeling lethargic... good job I got the bulk of the work, with lots of cycling between villages out of the way and am now at the stage of starting to write up my report to conclude the assessment and have begun action planning.

Oussainou Badji kindly came down to Abene from Brikama in the Gambia and attended the last Team Meeting with many new faces from the consultative meetings across the 3 villages. We have been progressing very well and have lots of ideas and plans for carrying out educational programmes to meet the needs of the community and match their priorities. Plans include running a pilot adult literacy programme, of two groups in each of the three villages, men and women in separate groups. And now at the end of the pilot children's English programme we would like to continue it into the next academic year.

The communities are keen to build on their experience working together on community businesses to fund local educational projects, and have had several ideas for sustainable funding. They include a community general store, investment in the existing palm oil businesses in each village, fishing business.

The next Team Meeting is to be held on Sunday and we will consult with the communities on action planning to continue work on the project in October after the rainy season which is starting now.