Our Founding Story

Organizations are born out of diverse reasons, such as felt needs and sometimes inspirations from real life situations. In 2004, I was involved in a study on the prevalence of early marriage and was responsible for an enumeration area in a village called Sami Pachonki in the northern part of the Upper River Region in the Gambia, 138 Miles from Banjul – the capital. In this remote village, I spent just one night and that was enough experience to see the apparent social problems facing children in the village. I had a focus group discussion with ten married girls - all between twelve and fourteen years - who never saw an opportunity to education due to apparent socio-cultural factors.

 

After administering questionnaires with the villagers, I inquired with the head of the village about the plight of the girls. The Head of the Village called informed me that the community had two pressing problems; one dealing with a cultural belief that the girl-child needs no formal education. Secondly, amongst many other issues, the lack of a good educational facility in the village needed to take care of the children.

However, from observation, there was one public school in the outskirt of the village serving the community. This facility, at the time, was in a derelict state with two classrooms, and according to the villagers with only one permanent instructor. I was astounded by this and could not believe the derelict state of the only facility; and the neglect of so many children whose only domain is domestic work. This inspired me to write a poem entitled titled Sounds of the Dawn published in a magazine by the Inter African Committee on Traditional Practices and in a research report by GAMCOTRAP. I left this village with despondency but with hope that there is an opportunity for change in the future; a kind hope only driven by the wishes of the young married girls who expressed profound interest in education rather than early marriage.

Until my return to the village in 2010 for a training program; I was sitting under a tree on a very hot day with an American intern from Washington Jefferson College and a former field coordinator of GAMCOTRAP. While we were taking a short break, I could still see a lot of children roaming the village ideally on a day and time that they were expected to be in school. With a reminiscent experience about the plight of children in the village; this was not much of a surprise.

While the children were playing under the hot sun, a young girl at the age of 9 came close by and I called her to inquire about school related issues. I also noticed that all the children were without shoes and that motivated more inquiry.

This beautiful young girl narrated: “I lost my shoe and my mother said she does not have money to buy a new shoe.”  Then I asked her if that was the only reason keeping her out of school on that day and the response was in affirmative. Then I asked her if there was a store to buy her a new shoe and she led me to the only village store; and there was no shoe. The only possibility for the young girl to get a shoe to go to school was to walk or travel with a donkey cart approximately 2.5 miles to a larger village with or to perhaps wait for the next market day to buy her shoe. She then led me to her mother to whom I gave the equivalent of two shoes to buy for her to go to school.

Then I realized this child was not alone; there were many.  I also knew that there was a school nearby, but I still have a good number of children between ages 4 to 7 not in school. When I left the village that day, I became more inspired to lead an initiative that will address this major development gap particularly for children.

Stay-In-School International is therefore an organization for children’s early childhood education and a conduit for the completion on girls’ education. This initiative is for every individual and institution with an interest in bringing a sustainable success in the lives of children and eventually the empowerment of the future generation.

This strategic plan 2020 – 2023 is a pilot. Our programs and activities will require support and commitment of government, non-profit donors and partners, local and traditional institutions and children as the primary beneficiaries.

Omar Dibba

Founder and Executive Director