“When I began teaching, I started thinking of how to provide education for the hundreds of children in my community who could not travel to the nearest school which is more than 6 kilometres away from where they live. I convened a community meeting and informed all the village elders of my intention to return home and give back to my community. This is how I managed to come back … and start teaching here,” Marie maintains.  

As a young student, Marie was most passionate about English class and has fond memories of a teacher by the name of Mr. Dumbuya who cultivated a love of learning as he encouraged her every step of the way. 

Eventually, the educator would indeed find her way home, taking up the teaching mantel in Kabekal and aiming to contribute to her community’s development. Upon her return, Marie realized the extent to which quality education for Kabekal’s youngest residents seemed to be lacking, so she worked with community members to establish an early childhood development centre in the village. Soon thereafter, the learning centre was upgraded to a community-led lower basic education school! 

But since then, the school has fallen on hard times and economic woe has come to characterise a large part of daily life in a community where most residents are subsistence farmers who cultivate crops, such as maize, beans, cassava and rice for a living. Rural communities like Kabekal in The Gambia that were already wrestling with poverty, cope with high rates of inflation the best way they know how, but the bill, at some point, must come due. And, unfortunately, that means that in many instances access to education, particularly for the most vulnerable children, suffers. At the moment, the school that Marie has been working for and supporting all these years to expand education opportunity to the children of Kabekal is in dire straits. Although primary education is free in The Gambia, Marie’s school is a community-initiated school, rather than a government school and is therefore supported by the community. Many parents in the village simply do not have the means to support their families, while at the same time paying the costs that keep the doors of the school open.

Marie, a mother of four herself who has taught all levels of education at the school, is, of course, sympathetic to the situation. Volunteering her spare time to help ensure success, Marie is active in the community, speaks to a lot of parents, and does not believe that the matter rests on a poor perception of the value of education. The teacher says, “most of the parents that I spoke to say they want their children to be educated, but they don’t have the money...”

She explains how the residents had agreed together that each parent would pay a minimal fee of approximately US$2.50 per quarter for their child, which would cover the cost of teacher salaries and the school’s basic needs. Yet, in an era of economic insecurity and the adverse effects of climate change on a community of subsistence farmers, this seemingly small sum has, in effect, become burdensome. 

Buba Sarjo, a parent with three children attending the school, offers valuable insight into what many households may face stating, “I am thinking about how to feed my children every day, and this has become a huge burden on me to the point that sometimes my children go hungry, especially when the rice that we cultivate is finished while we are awaiting the harvest of the new one.” One can clearly imagine the difficult position before many parents who feel forced to choose between putting food on the table or a seat in the classroom.