My name is Angelina and I am the Project coordinator for Mango Tree Nursery in Gambia. We are excited to announce our new partnership with World Faith Gambia to help support a nursery school for refugee and disadvantaged children in the village of Jiboro.

The Mango Tree Nursery School, situated on the border of Gambia and Senegal, has a long history of taking in refugees fleeing conflict in the Casamance region of Senegal. The country has an open-door policy to refugees, who are given a house and a plot of land to farm, but in an area where many families are subsistence level farmers, the village’s ability to provide for the expanding population has been stretched to the limits. There are currently 69 refugee children enrolled at the nursery, along with 75 local students but there are just two classrooms, one broken water pump and many children on the waiting list to attend.

Refugee Children’s Centres will be working with World Faith Gambia and the Jiboro village Development Committee in a capacity building project to support the Mango Tree Nursery School. We aim to do this by helping to raise money to build additional classroom space, training local staff in delivering a play-based early years’ curriculum, and by providing play equipment, learning resources and additional teaching support.

World Faith's primary goal is to deincentivize religious violence by bringing together people from religiously diverse backgrounds and by addressing the underlying economic issues that contribute to violence. Religious violence and poverty are two key drivers of displacement so World Faith's vision and aims make them an ideal partner with whom to collaborate.

After my extensive experience of 7 years teaching early years in Spain and my degree in International Relations I feel I can bring a lot to this role. Over the years I have volunteered in a variety of countries and I am a real lover of culture and international partnership to build a happy and sustainable future for people from different backgrounds. Play and creative arts are so important to a child's development and if they are happy and content in their environment they will absorb more and have the opportunity to excel in many areas. The Mango Tree Nursery will provide a safe space to learn and and for kids to be kids, creating, dancing, singing and laughing, all of which is so important in the early years of life. Volunteers with valuable experience will also be training the local teachers so that a more creative curriculum is put in place and can be sustained.

Any funds raised will go towards supplies for the school and to support long term volunteers during their time at Mango Nursery. Please help us make this amazing project a reality.

We are currently looking for short and long term volunteers

Contact us to find out more: https://www.facebook.com/refugeechildrenscentres

"Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning. But for children play is serious learning. Play is really the work of childhood." Fred Rogers

"Only where children gather is there any real chance of fun." Mignon McLaughlin

"Each of us as citizens, has a role to play in creating a better world for our children." Nelson Mandela