GTSuk Office

GETS Office Kololi

December 2007

2008

April
2006

October
2005

There have been major staffing changes since April 2006, during the 2006 rainy season Ousman left unannounced to travel to America. It was not until November 2006 that he was replaced with a far older and more experienced administrator, Musa Colley.

Musa's remit was to sort out the administration and bring GETS in line with the administration now required of a UK registered charity. The trustees required fully auditable books and far more rigorous recording of sponsorship activity.

During this period of change it was difficult for the existing staff to change their way of working. In August 2007 Jerreh Jammeh was dismissed for failing to maintain the sponsorship files and accounts and Kabs who had asked to leave in January 2007 finally left after the handover period.

The office was transformed, all the files were renewed and sorted as well as was possible, new shelves were fitted for them and the office was regularly manned by Musa 6 days a week, one of the sponsored students Basirou also came in on a regular basis as a volunteer to help with the new admin.

By April 2007 all finances were changed to cheque payments, and all sponsored families, schools and colleges all accepted the new payment method.

Building work had been considered but due to the sudden drop in the dalasi - £ exchange rate this was shelved. The plans were to increase the size of the office to provide a charity sales area to house school resources, posters etc but this will have to wait.

As 2007 closes - the policy of the charity to employ only Gambian managerial staff has been reversed and now the office administration will be done by UK volunteers paid a small monthly salary.

April 2006

Very major demolition work took place as soon as the previous tenants moved out. Re- construction work started immediately to produce a seemly join between the old Dardeema and the NEW GTS Bar & Restaurant, the change was remarkable.

GTS and GETS now share an office and have a full time secretary Ousman Jaiteh. However the disruption was enormous and it was not until early March that the office was decorated, shelves were fitted and furniture, phone and electrics were refitted.

The space available is much bigger than before and we now have a front reception area that will house our educational resources shop in the future. At present it is being used part time as an educational resources workshop.

October 2005

The GTS offices and now the GETS offices are situated within the GTS Bar and Restaurant, (Map shown below) this is being significantly developed Nov 2005) as our original Dardeema Restaurant now becomes part of GTS again - giving us the whole site in Kololi.

GETS now has dedicated fulltime staff, whose main job is to administer, maintain and report back to all Student and Project Sponsors. Kabs and Jerreh will front up this team and will be supported by a new administrative assistant who will work jointly for GTS and GETS.

Mansa (Lamin Drammeh) will continue to work on the nursery school curriculum project and will eventually be paid by GETS.

You can telephone the GETS/GTS office in Gambia

on (00220) 4462476

Please send emails to Francis and he will forward them to the relevant Gambian staff