By Nelson Manneh
The Catholic Development Office (Caritas Gambia) has implemented the Climate Smart Wash Project at St Francis Upper and Senior Secondary School, Kunkujang Mariama Village, Kombo South District.
The Project covers ten modern toilets, a borehole, fifty-one coconut trees, ten pawpaw trees, three pineapple trees, and ten orange trees.
On Monday, 2 September 2024, Caritas Gambia conducted a site visit to the said school to see the progress and areas that need improvement.
The Catholic Development Office (Caritas Gambia), was established in January 2001 as the development component of the Catholic Diocese of Banjul and registered with the Ministry of Justice as a charitable, non-profit organization with Reg. No. 469/2001.
The institution is mandated to coordinate the economic, social, and development work of the Diocese aimed at attaining a more humane and just society, irrespective of creed, colour, race, or ideology.
Mr. Francis Dominick Mendy, the Director of Caritas Gambia, during the site visits, said the Catholic Diocese is historically credited for providing sustainable education to a cross-section of the Gambian people irrespective of race, creed, or social standing.
“We visited St Francis some time ago and realized that they needed some facilities within the school. We found out that the school was relying on a hand pump for water and the hand pump at the time was not working effectively. We then transformed the hand pump to a borehole and added another extra tank for the school to have sufficient and clean water,” he said.
With the Climate-Smart Wash Project, Director Mendy said they were able to provide the school with ten modern toilets that are differently user-friendly for the school.
“For effective learning to take place, there should be a clean and friendly environment. We also went ahead to plant eighty-four fruit trees within the school campus,” he said.
Mr Sangmarie Mendy, the Principal of St Francis Upper and Senior Secondary School, said his school has an enrolment of one thousand and eight hundred students and all these students were using a single hand pump to access water.
“This project has not only improved the quality and easy access to clean water, but it has solved our sanitation problems. In those days, students had to fetch water with buckets from the hand pump to the toilets, but now with the coming of this project the toilets have taps and they are easily accessible,” he said.
Mr Mendy finally stated that the fruit trees that are planted within the school campus have improved the environmental outlook of the school.
“The school now looks more beautiful and livelier. We embrace all that is provided to the school by Caritas Gambia,” he happily expressed.
