Tower and Town, November 1992

CLOTHES FOR THE GAMBIA

Friends in Gunjur have requested that we in Marlborough should send to them good quality, second-hand clothes to enable them to run a shop in the village - which will serve two purposes.

Firstly, it will provide cheap but good quality clothes to local people, and secondly the profits can be used for development projects in the village, e.g. the children's playgroup, the carpentry workshop of a business training programme.

We need one or two volunteers who would advertise for clothes locally and collect, sort and pack them into cartons for shipment to The Gambia. During recent discussions we thought that we would initially run a small pilot project and limit the clothes to, say, T shirts, shorts and children's clothes.

As importantly, we would see the volunteers developing a relationship with counterparts in Gunjur from the basis of which a smoothly run business would operate at both ends of the link. It might be that as the project progressed, a market would open up in Marlborough for some of the tie dye clothes produced by the tailors in Gunjur.

This kind of income-generating programme for communities in developing countries is vital to enable those communities to invest money in projects which will ensure a happier and more secure future for their children.

If there is anyone who would be prepared to discuss this idea a little further, please contact Dr Nick Maurice, The Marlborough Surgery, George Lane (512187) or Mount Orleans, Barnfield (512524).

Nick Maurice