Bax's Garden Project - The Gambia

Hi,

Firstly, thank you for taking the time to look at and consider this funding request. There are many many deserving causes in the world and I am grateful you have considered this one.

I am raising funds to help a friend of mine in The Gambia in West Africa called Bakary Jammeh. - he is usually known as "Bax" or "Bax the Hat" on account of him hardly ever being seen without one of his hats!

Bax lives in a small rural village called Darsalimi on the southern border of The Gambia with his wife and his 4 children. I got to know him some 6 years ago when he was a security guard at a hotel I was staying at whilst supporting another project. At the time, Bax was renting a room with spartan facilities in a nearby village. Problems occurred in the village, his eldest child was injured in a fire by local youths and the family were thrown out of their room by their landlord. For some weeks, they lived under a corrugated iron sheet in the community and he subsequently lost his job at the hotel plunging the family in to crisis with only his wife's small income as a clerk in a nearby town to assist them.

Bax is not one to give up easily. I fundraised to help him purchase a piece of land in Darsalimi and he has now got a basic home on that land and his children are back in education and in a place of safety. Bax has obtained a driving licence and worked for a season in the retail industry as a driver before that work ended due to the pandemic. Prior to the pandemic, I went to see the house and land and saw the potential for him to turn the land into a small market garden enterprise.

Since then, a well has been sunk for water and crops have been planted and harvested. I have taught Bax through on-line tuition, which crops to grow for best yield and for sustainability and I am pleased that he now has the start of a concern that can help feed his family and also generate a little income from his neighbours by the sale of surplus produce. Bax needs to expand though and I hope that this is where you will come in. He needs to cultivate more of his land to grow enough crops to make it viable to take to the market 20 miles away and sell enough to cover overheads and provide ongoing and an improvement in his family..

Would you be willing to help this venture please? Bax has had a difficult life, has tried to bounce back from each crisis that affected him and his family and is trying really hard to get a good life for them.

All help, no matter how great or small helps him get one step or more forward in achieving that dream. Some photos are attached which show this year's harvest.

Thank you again for your time.