At our May 2026 meeting the Trustees agreed a grant of £3,000 to Building Futures in The Gambia (BFiG) to build a library at BFiG Busumbala Nursery School. It is a capital grant for a single building, and it arrived at the perfect moment.
511 books, nowhere to keep them
In July, BFiG’s school manager Lamin Barrow travelled to Banjul to collect a shipment of 511 brand-new books donated by Book Aid International. For many of the children at Busumbala, these will be the first books they have ever been able to borrow or simply sit and enjoy. The only question was where to keep them.
Our grant is the answer. As BFiG put it in their own news post, “our children won’t just have 511 books… they’ll have a beautiful new home for them too. It really is the perfect partnership.”
How the grant came about
BFiG applied to us in February 2026. There followed the usual exchange of emails and supporting documents, and a video interview with one of our Trustees, before the application came to the full board in May. It is exactly the kind of grassroots project we look for: a small UK charity, a clear local manager, a specific building, and a school we can follow over the years ahead.
What happens next
Construction is due to start in October 2026, once the rainy season had passed. Before the rains, the BFiG team have been finishing a new toilet block, demolishing the old one, and planting orange trees, banana trees and bougainvillea around the school grounds.
We will share photographs as the library goes up. In the meantime you can read BFiG’s own announcement, A New Library and A New Partnership with Hazel’s Footprints Trust, and find out more about the school on their website.
