Saturday 30 May 2015

We understand

E-mail and Twitter and Facebook help to keep us in touch with our friends in The Gambia. Sometimes we have contact with them and find that they are in unexpected places - as refugees in Italy, Lampedusa or Tripoli.  We can chat with them but there is, sadly, little else we can do. Our British government seems determined to keep them out. I think Britain has the lowest response rate to accepting people who are trying to escape persecution or famine.
 This is why, on every journey we have made over the years to West Africa, half the people we chat to on the plane are taking some form of help - maybe a few pencils for a school, maybe money to help ex-servicemen and their families, maybe medical supplies to re-stock a village clinic or any other way of helping people on a one-to-one basis. It seems that ordinary people are more humanitarian that the governments that claim to represent them.
We understand also that governments which 'donate' money to needy communities do not always ensure that their donations go to people who are in need of education or health care. Many of these 'donations' are made conditional on the purchase of weapons of war. We guarantee that donations made to GOES end up in the hands of people in need, or as equipment for schools or clinics.
Income from the sale of the Malinding Ebooks generally helps with school fees for children who would not otherwise have an education.

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