Events and Sponsored Bridge Walk for the Gambia

1ST CRYSTAL PALACE SCOUT GROUP and Crystal Palace Panther Explorer Unit are planning on going to the Gambia to undertake a charitable project with the Gunjur Project which works with the local Gambian community.  

I shall be leading, currently, a team of 14 people, 5 Explorers, 4 Scouts and 5 leaders on this expedition to the Gambia.  This is the 4th visit for myself, and 5th for the group, who have looked to fundraise for local Gambian projects.  

To raise funds I will be undertaking a sponsored walk from Putney Bridge to Tower Bridge with the 1st Crystal Palace Group and Explorers which is 25km down the Thames stopping off at the Oval for a midway break. Please sponsor me.

When we go we will take out paint brushes, rollers, trays, gloves, scrapers, cloths and masking tape to enable us to blitz a number of classroom to help improve their learning environment. We will also seek to undertake workshops with the CETAG Gunjur Turtle Conservation project who are seeking to protect the Green Turtle from pollution and extinction by helping provide a cleaned up habitat for them. They also have a tree nursey and plant trees. 

With the Madina Scouts, we will litter pick some of the breeding sites for the turtles, removing the plastic that has been discarded. We will then take that plastic to a local Precious Plastics Recycling Project where we can recycle the plastic to make useful items such as coasters, keyrings, beads for earrings, or rulers amongst other things that can be sold or bought to generate revenue. This allows people to see plastics as a resource to make money from rather than to be discarded. 

These will be the 3 main projects we will be getting involved with when we are there. The 4th project we will be helping to fundraise for is the making of reusable sanitary towels for girls, and for the education pack to go with them so the Girls of the Gambia can understand how to use them, reuse them and clean them. Period poverty for girls is a major source of infection for girls and we want to help support this education and manufacturing of sanitary towels in the Gambia to help girls not get sick and ending up missing school due to lack of hygiene products.

In the Gambia we will undertake these local projects whilst we are there and meet up with the Scouts of Madina Salam and Gunjur to do community scouting with them to improve the local environment.  It will also give them environmental skills to use to educate people in how best to look after their precious environment.