We are once again very grateful to The Big Lottery Fund. The Big Lottery Fund has as usual dipped into their Fortunata’s purse and extended their hands of generosity to The Gambian Association. The Big Lottery has given us an amount of ten thousand pounds (£10,000) to help us run Adult Education Program which is currently taking place at the Summerfield Centre in Birmingham on every Tuesday and Thursday evening. We are running the Adult Education Program for people mainly from other EU countries who cannot speak or write English in order to help them quickly integrate into the British community. The attendance is very impressive and those attending are very happy. Our students include both Black and white, males and females. We’ve planned to run this program for one year and without the funding from The Big Lottery Fund we may not have make this possible. We can’t thank The Big Lottery Fund enough but we are very grateful and hope that our cordial relationship will continue to flourish.
The Gambian Association has benefited from the Big Lottery Funding in 2009. This funding has gone a long way to help the association to run after school classes for children in need. The accomplishment this project was one of our fundamental aims and it could not have taken place without the generous funding from the Big Lottery Fund. We shall always be in debt to the Big Lottery Fund who has made it possible for us to have registered this land mark achievement in the history of the association.
The Gambian Association has organised a very successive football tournament where teams came from other major cities of the country to participate the in tournament. The sponsorship of this programme was facilitated by the Birmingham Community Foundation. The association was able to buy various trophies which were presented to the successive teams and awards given individuals for their talents and performances at the end of the tournament. Lot of family members, young and old have come out to support and enjoy themselves on the occasion.
The Gambian Association Birmingham was sponsored by the City Hospital and Heartlands Hospital in Birmingham with some hospital equipment and medicines. The hospital equipment and medicines were sent to The Gambia with help of the President of The Gambia and items were distributed to various medical establishments throughout the country. The people of Gambia were very appreciative of the of the donation and it came up as the main news headlines on the national TV as can be seen in the video below
The Association had funding from the Art Council which helped organise a live music concert by bring Jaliba Kuyateh