Tuesday 13 July 2010

Focussing on training support in Gambia

A few years ago I did an excellent NVQ course in Management with Focus Training based at Plympton.  My tutor at the time, Jayne Maddocks was very supportive and got in touch with me via The Herald article a couple of years back offering to help me with some school resources for the nursery school.

Focus Training donated a hundred pounds worth of nursery resources and their staff donated bags of children's clothes, toys and other useful items, all of which were shipped out here and went to needy causes. 

When I was back in Plymouth in April, I popped in to see Jamie Rail, Director of Focus Training and Jayne, now promoted to manager,  and told them about a new project I'm involved in here setting up a tertiary educational establishment called Chosaan Academy, owned and run by Gambians and a really forward-thinking charity organisation.

Jamie and Jayne soon collected up loads of useful training resources, books, videos and dvds,  and I shipped them out using a shipping company called Wynot in Exeter who are always 100% reliable and really helpful.

When the items arrived here in The Gambia the trainers were so excited. 

They are really looking forward to using the new materials with the brand new intake of students in September.

Jayne is hoping to organise a trip over here to give us some more training support and for Focus' personnel to gain experience of working in a developing country.

Thank you to everyone involved in enabling this to happen, especially to The Herald for reporting the story which enabled Jayne to get in touch with me.

Pictured here are Jayne Maddocks and Jamie Rail with just a few of the resources they donated.