Vermont Gambia Women’s Organization Constitution
NAME: Vermont Gambia Women Organization (VGGP)
ADDRESS: The Gambia, West Coast Region, Bafuloto Village
AIMS & OBJECTIVES: The Vermont Gambia Women Organization (VGGP) is a community-based sustainable development project established in 2017 to improve the lives and livelihood of its members. Our goal is to enhance food security and livelihood for members, their families, and the community. We promote well-being through investments in small-scale, locally managed, development and education projects in the Bafuluto Village. Project objectives focus on four main areas: 1) clean water & sanitation; 2) enhanced food security, 3) youth education, and 4) female empowerment and entrepreneurship.
MEMBERSHIP: Membership is open to all families in the Bafuloto Village, West Coast Region of The Gambia, with a focus on women seeking to improve the lives and livelihood of their families. Members (or the people in their compound) are required to contribute 10+ hours per month to organizational leadership and VGGP project management.
SOURCE of FUNDING: VGGP strengthens relations between the people in Vermont (USA) and The Gambia. Project co-founders from the USA and The Gambia collaborate on budget management and fundraising. Currently, most of the funding comes from the financial support of “Friends of VGGP” in the United States. Our long-term goal is for the VGGP to be financially self-sustaining with income generated locally through several successful women-run enterprises: tent / chair rentals, food production/sales, facility fees, etc.
VOTING: The VGGP strives to make decisions by consensus at regular meetings. Women current in volunteering 10+ hours per month to VGGP are considered voting members. Whenever consensus cannot be reached, each voting member may cast a single vote on decision making issues. Approval requires 51% of the total.
MEETINGS: Members meet weekly to discuss progress, challenges, and opportunities. Whenever possible decisions are made by consensus. All community members are encouraged to share ideas and VGGP is open to feedback from neighbors, NGOs, and experts who can advise on community-development and consult when challenges arise.
Financial Reporting: Project managers provide regular financial updates and make financial reports available to community members upon request.
Project Updates: VGGP posts regular project updates including milestones, outcomes and impact on its website and via social media.
QUORUM: The assembly needs a quorum of two thirds (2/3) to adopt articles.
AMENDMENTS: This Constitution requires two thirds (2/3) vote to pass amendments.
PENALTIES & DISCIPLINE: The VGGP seeks to promote eco-friendly practices including waste reduction, water conservation, and biodiversity protection. We encourage the sustainable use of local resources, incorporating traditional knowledge and practices. Compliance is voluntary and there are no penalties. We seek to resolve conflicts through mediation within the community.
DISSOLUTION: Two thirds (2/3) of the vote is needed to dissolve the VGGP. At which time, resources owned by the organization may be sold and the proceeds invested in local projects that advance missions like those of the VGGP.
EXECUTIVE MEMBERS: The undersigned executive members, on 11-22-22 in The Gambia, West Coast Region, Bafuloto Village (this is our address), hereby adopt this Constitution to guide our work advancing the sustainable development goals of VGGP.
Sue’s Return Trip to The Gambia, March 2024
The VGGP was officially registered and recognized as the “Vermont Gambia Women’s Organization” by The Gambian government this year. Founded in 2017, the VGGP focuses on human-scaled community development to improve the lives and livelihood of people in the Bafuluto Village. Our sustainable development projects focus on 1) clean water & sanitation; 2) enhancing food security; 3) youth education; and 4) female empowerment and entrepreneurship.
This year we celebrate the opening of EVA’S Learning Center where 42 students receive tutoring in English & math. Demand currently exceeds our capacity to serve.
VGGP continues to provide water and land for 14 families to grow food for the people living in their compounds, selling any surplus. This year we replaced the wire fence around the garden – animals were getting in! Our long-term need is to build a proper block wall to protect the gardens.
While I was there, Lamin harvested the first fresh coconut from the tree he planted as a seedling 7 years ago; and neighboring kids enjoyed fresh oranges every day from trees he planted.
The picnic and birding trip to the River on my last day was a highlight. All the way home in the packed van the kids sang! They are saying ‘Every day should be a Sue day!’ Lamin tells me: my heart soars.
Leaving is always the hardest part, as evidence by the sad-faced friends at my send-off:
Four Days in Africa
In October 2023, I spent four days in The Gambia, West Africa, living in the family compound of Lamin Drammeh. I was visiting the VGGP, a human-scaled sustainable development project we launched in 2017. Since I’ve asked everyone I know to support the project, I thought I’d better take a first-hand look. Here’s a snapshot of my experience:
Day I – It’s the end of the rainy season. Sweltering heat and stifling humidity goes unnoticed by Moudo, our driver, as he navigates roads pocked with craters that could swallow his car. The central highway is crammed with humanity and commerce. Diesel smoke fills my lungs as we drive to the capital city of Banjul where Kani, a community member, recovers in the maternity ward at the Central Hospital. She lost her first child.
Her mother Nday is the head of the VGGP women farmers. She camped outside the hospital in the shade of an overhang, along with families of other patients, and Lamin visited every day. Families and friends care for hospitalized loved ones, providing meals and reassurance, and advocating for their health needs. After a brief visit, I pressed 4,000 Gambian Dalasi (about $60) into Kani’s hand to pay her hospital fee so she may be released tomorrow.
Day II – “You are family.” says Lamin, “please make yourself at home.” I’m given the best room in the main house within the walled compound where he lives with Awa (left in pink), his wife, and their six children (ages 10 months to 13 years) along with assorted other family. I share a double bed with seven-year-old Binta. Our room has an attached lean-to with a toilet and shower, but the thing I’m most grateful for is the ceiling fan (and electricity, when it's working). Gosh it’s hot.
I’m excited to tour the garden where 14 neighbors grow food in individual plots. In preparation for planting, women have begun clearing the lush growth that sprang up during the annual rains. Lamin drags a hose to the spigot and we water 500 nursery trees - small mango, orange, and coconut seedlings. They’ll be distributed to 42 households to plant within their compounds, creating an edible landscape that enhances food security.
A dozen elders have come to pray for the continued success of the project that provides food, education, and livelihood to their community. May Allah grant peace and prosperity. The prayer room, along with a small classroom and tailor shop facing the street, is in the building (right) built by VGGP in 2021 to serve as a local enterprise center.
Day III - Today is women’s day. Several neighboring women, many with infants swaddled to their backs, gather in their colorful bests for a ribbon cutting celebration. It’s the official opening of the new women’s cooperative tent rental business. VGGP purchased two large tents and we’re raising funds for 20 dozen chairs (@ $50/dozen) for the women’s rental enterprise.
I’ve gifted Shelburne Farms t-shirts to my Gambian family, who wear them with pride. Once remarks are made, Nday (left - in blue) and I cut the ribbon, and someone starts to beat on a plastic container. Spontaneous rhythmic dancing follows. I’m nudged into the center of a pulsating circle of women, moving as fast as my new hip allows. The joy I feel is abundant and real, but I’m silently grateful that my public display is only seen locally.
Day IV - Saving the best for last, today is children’s day. “We’ll go to the beach,” Lamin smiles and he spends the morning making sweet hibiscus tea (left) for the outing. So many kids want to come that we’ve rented a small van. With a grill and supplies strapped to the roof, 30 people cram into the 14-passenger van and we’re off. After a bumpy hour’s drive, with one stop for additional supplies, we unload at a cul de sac between two resort hotels and stumble down a pathway to the Atlantic.
The women immediately set to cleaning and spicing chicken for the grill. While the boys dart straight into the ocean splashing joyfully in the shallow rolling waves. A man on horseback gallops by. The girls, dressed in their best clothes, watch from the shoreline.
But, being a Jersey girl, I’ve come prepared with my swimsuit and shorts under my African dress. To the surprise of my hosts, I peel off my dress and romp straight into the tepid water, encouraging the girls to join me. We splash and play, jumping waves and holding hands until we're called out for supper. Chicken and rice eaten with sandy hands from four shared bowls, as the sun sets on my final day in The Gambia. “For most,” Lamin whispers as we climb back into the van, “this is their first trip to the beach.”
On behalf of my Gambian family and the entire VGGP community benefiting from your kindness and support: Thank you! Our accomplishments are many and the impact significant.
With whole hearted love and gratitude, Sue
Jan-2024
Love and Water
It all begins with an idea.
Part I. Ten Years Ago…
Rain pelts the Airbus 320 landing in Senegal for refueling midway between Washington DC and Johannesburg. Dave and I are among the handful of passengers deplaning. I overhear a flight attendant telling a couple nearby, “There is nothing to see in Dakar.”
Nine months earlier we had read “The Songs of Senegal” in the Sunday New York Times and now we’re 4,000 miles from home with a protective soup of inculcations surging through our veins to celebrate of our 25th wedding anniversary.
“And the adventure begins,” Dave whispers exiting the airport, men swarming to offer taxi, currency exchange and tours. Dakar is a sprawling city of 6 million with a chaotic order difficult to decode. Its humanity fills an entire peninsula jetting into the Atlantic at the western most point on the African continent. Here, centuries ago, millions of people were chained onto slave ships for the Americas and other distant ports.
From Senegal, we travel to The Gambia, a narrow country hugging the two-mile wide tidal river that bears its name. Swept into the flow of humanity, we make our way to the Safari Garden hotel in the coastal town of Fajara. We are the only guests. Our anniversary it so happens during the Rainy Season, which is when malaria is at its peak.
We hired a soft-spoken Mandinka man as our guide. Traveling with Sainey is a gift. We follow as he points out red colobus monkeys, a forest cobra and lots of birds – the fire finch, hamerkob, sunbird and weaver. We ask questions and observe without worry of getting lost, hassled or ripped off. Relaxing in a river-side Lodge resembling a collection of treehouses, we learn bits of Sainey’s story. His father was a fisherman, who died in an accident when Sainey was five. After his mother remarried, Sainey was raised his grandfather. He has a wife and four-week-old daughter in his village 150 miles up river. Conversation stops when I scream, a monkey poked my neck. The waitress quickly tosses Sainey a stick to fend off the primates. “Hold onto your camera,” he warns, these mischievous creatures are renowned for snatching and bolting into the mangroves never to be seen again.
The only definite plan we had before leaving the United States was to spend our actual anniversary at the Sandele eco-resort on the southern coast near the fishing village of Kartong. We arrive to be greeted by Lamin Drummeh. He ushers us to a beautiful circular room, and delivers two glasses of wonjo, a sweet red “welcoming” drink. Again, we are the only guests. The pulsing rhythm of waves calls from the distance, mixing with birdsong and the occasional screech of a monkey. It is easy to be comfortable at Sandele, despite intense heat and humidity.
By day we explore the village, delivering notepads, pencils and sharpeners to the school. Bicycling to the river where women harvest and cook oysters, and men smoke fish. Elderly women chant prayers upon us in a ritual blessing at an ancient crocodile pool. We are welcomed into a family compound to share a meal of fish and rice from a common bowl.
Evenings we sip Julbrews and encourage the staff – Lamin and Sarju, our waiter; Mbassey, housekeeping; Omar, security and Muhammad, the fabulous cook – to sit with us and discuss family, work and home. “Poverty is our only problem,” Lamin admits, sharing his dream to someday go back to his village to farm and raise a family.
At the end of our stay the resort is shuttered and we share a bush taxi with staff to Serrakunda. Lamin invites us home for a meal. He brews green tea on a small charcoal stove by his feet, while his wife Awa cooks domodah, beef and vegetables in tasty peanut sauce.
Carefully pouring two small glasses, Lamin hands a cup of sweet brew to Dave and another to me. The custom is to sip three cups of tea while enjoying hospitality and conversation.
Part II. Fast-forward ten years…
Sadly, we have lost contact with Sainey, but we are still in touch with Lamin. He and Awa have three children now – a son J. Dave (yes, named after Dave J.) and two daughters Fatama and Mirama. The resort sent him to India to train as a yoga instructor, but after the Ebola outbreak Lamin and all Sandele employees have been laid off.
Today’s technology makes it easier to stay in touch with friends around the globe. Lamin calls every Christmas, reminding us, “You are our American family. We are your Gambian family.” We sent modest gifts when the children were born and once paid the hospital fees to release Mariama after a malaria treatment. Mostly we simply check-in on how folks are doing.
Last year Lamin asked if we could help buy a solar-powered water pump that would enable four families to grow vegetables to eat and to sell. This was the humble beginning of a grassroots Vermont-Gambia Garden Project that is now providing food and livelihood to 15 families.
Everyone needs love and water to survive. Blessed with a trusted and capable project manager, this exciting 100% volunteer project is emerging as a low-cost model of sustainable development. Dave, Lamin, and I are deeply grateful to our friends at All Souls Interfaith Gathering, along with Catherine, Marlene and other “early adopters” providing seed funding to help launch “Love & Water.” The project is located on fertile land in Bafuloto 10 kilometers from the Gambian capital of Banju. We hope you share our enthusiasm for this true love story.
We now have a faster solar powered pump that can fill the water tank every two hours, so more people can feed their families. Each of the 15 families currently part of the project support 10-13 people. As I write this, Lamin is sending photos of the evening watering.
He writes, “Sue it is a great day for us. The tank
is getting full. The Vermont Gambian garden project is going well.” Next up is sanitation (toilet) and a garden storage facility.