BACE (Building and Assisting Communities with Education) is a development charity working in poor communities where education and health care facilities are few or do not exist.
BACE was started in 2011 by a group of volunteers who had been travelling to The Gambia for over 7 years prior to registering, and had developed a passion for the country and it’s people.
The charity originally set to work building a nursery school in a undeveloped village called Bonsa in the Western Region of The Gambia. The school was built in November 2011, opening for its first students on February 14th, with 100 Children ages between 3 and 7 gracing the classrooms ready to start their education. The school has since had 15 children graduate and move up to the next stage in their learning, with one star student skipping a year due to her outstanding achievements at Favour Nursery.
The charity later moved on to build staff accommodation and put in a borehole to allow for a clean and easily accessible water source for both the school and it’s staff.
A small vegetable garden was added to the school grounds, alongside a playground for the children to use during their break time.
The future for BACE sees a clinic opening in November of this year, providing much needed basic healthcare for within 20,000 people including pregnant women and young children. The Primary Health Clinic will provide a safe and clean environment for patients to receive basic health care which in turn can prevent minor ailments from becoming fatal.
Over the next year BACE also has plans to start a feeding programme to ensure that all Favour Nursery children have 1 nutritious meal
A day. A large vegetable plantation has been planted by the local development committee which is not only growing vegetables for the school to use, but also Providing these families working on the plots the opportunity to grow their own families vegetables for them to use at home.
In order for our clinic to run and our vegetable plots to grow successfully, the charity has recently put in a new solar panels borehole and reservoirs for water collection. This will also form a continuous source of running water for the clinic and helps make things easier for the women working on the plots, who previously had to walk long distances carrying buckets of water to and fro to water the crops.
In March 2015 the charity has plans to build a kitchen for the schools feeding programme and a waiting room for the clinic. Trips of volunteers have been organised to go out and assists the African builders with their work to ensure that it is done in good time.
The charity are currently raising money for both these projects, visit the website to see how you can help or donate, and see where all of your money and contributions have gone.
Building and Assisting Communites with Education 