Updated
August 20, 2007
Gambia
Tourist
Support
Can you
provide Information
We
need advice on Solar power for water heating and Electricity
We need information on pumps to raise water from 17 metre deep wells
- You might not have money to help BUT do you have skills and knowledge
you can give? OR know a man who will.
Charitable
Works
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Gambian engineers keep the countries cars running long after they would have been scraped in the UK and when the vehicles are finally DEAD, their parts are recycle or melted down to make new items.
Nothing is wasted, you will see fences made of car doors, and the larger sheets of metal are hammered into new products.
GTS wants to support this practical approach to conservation, increase employment and improve standards.
GTS/GETS now has a centre in Gambia and it also has accommodation for members both in Kololi.
Lamin and Foday cheated us, but mainly cheated their fellow Gambians depriving them of a skills centre and a safe house for Women and Children.
Sadly Lamin's and Foday's are still abundant in Gambia and despite all the warnings tourists are still far to trusting of their FRIENDS
We still need volunteers
help - but
this page remains on the site as it was written in 2001 as a warning to
others about trusting people (see below)
The GTS centre as well as offering accommodation to GTS members and workers
will also be a permanent working display of sustainable power.
From very simple water heating systems to more technological solar panels linked to electric's
We need INFORMATION on how to link old radiators to hotwater cylinders to get hot water from the 11 hours of Gambian sun.
Deep wells are a feature of Gambia and are brilliantly built. But raising the water is still mainly done with rope and bucket by the women and girls, who then carry it in large containers on their heads for great distances to their compounds. We want to display easily maintained pumps.
DO YOU KNOW ABOUT PUMPS and /or SOLAR POWER TO DRIVE THEM
The centre is built on cliffs overlooking the Atlantic and though Wind power is less reliable than the Sun, it is a sustainable resource for some parts of the year and will feature at the centre.
The Gambians are very versatile and adaptable engineers so the systems must be able to be reproduced locally - as far as possible
Can you help with advice or materials? Do you know a man who can?
Comment in 2007
Since starting GTS in 1997 when the idea arose from
our first family holiday to the country we have (as so many others) been
taken in by the warmth of the people, their honesty, their sincere religious
behaviour and all I can describe is a blind trust.
The project outlined
above had to be ceased when our first FRIEND Lamin, decided that (after
having £4,000 to buy the land for us and a loan of a futher £4000
to buy a car to run tourists around so he could earn a living - that he
had got enough from us and pulled out of GTS taking the car and land with
him.
TRUST in the UK is backed by the rule of law, in theory it is the same
in Gambia, but in practise this is not the case or has not been for the
last 10 years - there are signs that bumsters are being brought to justice
for cheating tourists but the evidence is patchy,
BE WARNED
Our second 'honest' FRIEND took £3000 to develop
a second piece of land in Brufut, the small patch of land came freeto
GTS, when we sold a regular sized plot and retained the irregular shaped
bit left over. All papers were in his name to avoid the Lamin in the first
incident from possibly laying claim to it as he had worked for GTS.
Foday left GTS suddenly and caused a personal family rift very cleverly
between me and my parents who were moved to put thousands of £'s
into what Foday described as an International Music School. an idea taken
from me in teh first place, the money was given on the understanding that
the land for GTS was returned. Of course the money and the land and the
£3000 development money has all gone the same way. BE
WARNED
We no longer TRUST in
the way we did before, corruption still exists
in the purchase of land but you are INFINITELY safer to do any business
in Gambia through official channels and not to TRUST your special FRIEND
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