By Binta Jaiteh
Future in Our Hands, The Gambia a non–partisan NGO in partnership with the Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education are committed to strengthen educational sector in The Gambia.
During the recent media briefing, the Director of Future in Our Hands, Jainaba T. Sarr highlighted the significant role play by the organisation for the past forty years to help the education sector.
“We have been quiet for all these years as it was inherited from the founders of this organization who are Gambian- Swedish who have the country at heart to invest their time and energy. If we can tell the communities how started to serve the people, it will give them the chance to appreciate our work,”
She continued: “It is also our duty to strengthen local partnership because over the years we had a lot of International cooperation but we also realized that there are a lot of resources in The Gambia to sensitise the people about our work.”
Future in Our Hands is a non-partisan NGO that has evolved from Future in Our Hands Sweden Gambia and it was established early in the 80s by a Swedish philanthropist who came to the Gambia to help in national development.
The organisation has built several schools in the country for the past forty years since its establishment in the country.
“Now we are active members of the CSO community in the Gambia and still work very closely with our Swedish partners because it is important to remember where we started and keep those friendships, we have diversified a lot in terms of resource mobilization through that we have built a partnership with national and International organizations,” she expounded.
Yankuba Manneh, Fundraising Manager highlighted the institution’s mission which according to him is to work with communities especially people in the rural areas to address the socio-economic needs or rights of the poor marginalized people.
“This is important in the sense that we have realized the gap between the poor and the rich. Our vision is to ensure that we empower communities that make informed decisions to improve their lives and livelihood. This is the highest extent we could go to help communities and our core values are to maintain transparency, accountability among other things,” he revealed, while highlighting the significant roles played by the organisation in establishment of over two hundred schools.