The Cherno Baba Nursery school , a community school at Manjai Kunda in the Gambia is looking for help. The shool was initially set up to help the community whose earning powers were very limited.The shool which is  meant for the less unfortunate parents, where they could be sending their kids for better education is at the moment facing some development hurdles. Speaking to this reporter the headmistress of the school Mrs. Dalanda Jallow said her school was set up some ten years ago, in order to close the gap between the less unfortunate and those that are privileged to go to western schools to acquire standard education. 

Ten years ago she said many parents could not financially afford sending their children to school for many reasons, one of those reasons was that it was expensive and secondly there was no school closer to the community.

She said it was against such backgrounds that the school which was single handedly taken up by her with some support from her husband and children came into existence. At the time a small amount of three hundred dalasi was being charged per student, this comparatively was smaller than what others were charging. The school was renting and the over head was a bit expensive. However we managed under those circumstances until in 2005, when a Dutch lion club came to the school’s aid by building a permanent structure with a three class room block with an office. Added to that support they were giving some sponsorship to few students. A number of children were sponsored per annum. This sponsorship has since stop and the children are no longer getting any sort of sponsorship and as a result it seriously affected the intake.

Now that, that support is no longer coming the school’s enrollment is dropped, considerably. This is because the parents cannot afford to pay for the kids, school fees which is a token of only D3000 or $150 per year; this  rate takes care of the teachers, books and uniforms. But again the community cannot afford it.Management cannot now pay staff salary that comes from the token that parents are to pay.

The headmistress is now calling on interested organizations, and individuals to give a helping hand so that the community can continued to benefit from the good job the school has being providing. She can be contacted directly on the following numbers: 220 9939020 or220 6669080