The vice president and secretary of state for Women’s Affairs, Aja Dr Isatou Njie-Saidy, yesterday received at State House the UNICEF representative to The Gambia, Min Whee Kan; the director of UNESCO/Breda, Ann Therese Ndong-Jatta; the executive secretary of The Gambia National Olympic Committee, George Gomez; and members of the Foundation for the Needy People Village Development Committee.

The first to be received by the vice president was the UNICEF boss who was at State House to introduce UNICEF’s goodwill ambassadors from South Korea and The Gambia, Won Bin and Jaliba Kuyateh respectively, as part of their schedule for the visit by the South Korean Committee for UNICEF to The Gambia.

Speaking to journalists shortly after their audience with the vice president, Min Whee Kan disclosed that they were preparing to leave for Basse in the Upper River Region (URR), where the South Korean Committee for UNICEF has been supporting The Gambia in the education sector, in the form of school reconstructions. According to her, they will be visiting schools that have been completed, and provide additional support. "The Korean UNICEF goodwill ambassador, Won Bin’s fans club, has raised some funds which they have brought along with some additional school supplies for the new schools," she said.

The UNICEF country representative further emphasized that they will use the trip to highlight the country’s challenges, development, progress as well as needs of children, so that they can mobilize resources for the development programmes in The Gambia. She added that The Gambia is one country where they have made a lot of progress, but that still, more needs to be done especially in the areas of health, nutrition, education, child protection, water sanitation, among others. She pointed out that these are areas Jaliba Kuyateh, the Gambian Kora maestro, has always been singing about.

Jaliba himself noted that he has always been advocating for exclusive breastfeeding for children under six, and that he has also been involved in sensitizing pregnant women to always sleep under mosquito treated bed nets to avoid malaria and other killer diseases. Present at the ceremony were the SoS for Basic and Secondary Education, Fatou Lamin Faye, and representatives from the Foreign Affairs and Health departments.

Engagement with Ann Therese Ndong-Jatta
Ann Therese Ndong-Jatta, UNESCO/Breda regional director for education, based in Paris, France, was the second to call on the vice president. This visit of her’s is the first since assuming office as the UNESCO representative to The Gambia. Speaking to reporters, the UNESCO regional boss disclosed that as UNESCO representative to The Gambia, among the four other countries in the sub-region, her visit to State House is meant basically to share with the vice president, developments in their different areas of intervention as well as some of their innovative interventions in the country. "As well as the appreciation of UNESCO of some of the progress that have been made," she said.

"We also discussed some other areas like cultural diversity and looking more in the area of support we can give to the Department of state for Higher Education, Research, Science and Technology, in sharing some of the projects on climate change, targeting especially the coastal countries in the West African region which also include The Gambia."

According to the UNESCO regional boss, her visit, more importantly, aims at appealing for continued support and appreciation of the fact that UNESCO, although not a funding agency, provides technical backstopping. "In view of the fact that I am here as one of you, we should really do our best to dialogue and communicate more often." Engagement with George Gomez and team. In a similar engagement, George Gomez, the executive secretary of the Gambia National Olympic Committee (GNOC), was received by VP Njie-Saidy at her office at State House.

Gomez and delegation were at State House to present their first religious book to the vice president. The 55-page book entitled: ‘Dramatized Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ’, covers a wide ranges of topics crucial to the spiritual nourishment of young Christians.
After meeting the vice president, Gomez told journalists that the book teaches love and passion, as Jesus Christ emphasized before he died. "So if God can love us, why can’t we love one another? The passion teaches a lot, and I think if we use it the society will be better off than it is now," he said.

And he added, "this is why during the trials some two years ago, we encouraged young people to come and take part in the passion so that they can learn its lesson." According to him, this book will in no small measure extend the love of God to the people, saying that if God loves you, it’s an obligation to return that love to Him.

Engagement with Foundation for Needy People Village Development Committee
Susanne Peterson, the initiator of the Foundation for Needy People Village Development Committee, based at Ebo Town, Serrekunda, also had audience with the vice president at State House. The Foundation’s members were at State House to discuss important issues crucial to its development, among them the establishment of an NGO in the country. After audience with VP Njie-Saidy, the Kafuta VDC chairman, Nfamara Colley, told journalists that the Foundation is a charitable organization operating countrywide. He said that in recent years, they have been engaged in helping a number of skills and health centres in the country, adding that they deemed it fitting to spread their tentacles to other areas in the development of the entire country.

"Our discussion with the country’s number two was centred basically on the establishment of an NGO. There were some difficulties encountered by the Foundation, which include the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) that was sent to frontline ministries but was difficult for it to be signed (sic)," he said. He added that having seen the vice president, they were assured that all will be taken care of. Mrs Susanne Petterson, initiator of the Foundation, disclosed that in 2004, she was working in the country as a volunteer nurse at Serrekunda, where she saw the need for help for some section of the society.

"So from my heart, I felt that I had to do something for the people of this country. After that I saw the need to educate the people as I met a lot of school drop-outs. That is why I started with a skills training centre which is important especially for young girls," she said.

According to Peterson, she is currently sponsoring about 60 students in the country. She disclosed that she got the funds from back home in Denmark. She was accompanied to State House by Bakata Bojang, the Alkalo of Kafuta Village in the Kombo East District.