This year two of our scholarship students are enrolled in the University of The Gambia, and several others are headed that way.

Amadou Njie, 22, last year became the first of our students to reach the university level. He is now in the second year of a four-year bachelor's degree program in economics. We have sponsored him since 2002, when he was in eighth grade at the Salikenni village school.

But for his ambition, Amadou might have gotten almost no education. His father, Abdou Njie, an elderly Salikenni farmer with two wives and 16 children, believed in putting his boys to work on the farm and marrying off his girls. None of the older siblings got more than lessons in the Koran and maybe a few years of primary school. But Amadou told his father he wanted an education, and the father agreed. Since then both parents have strongly encouraged him to continue.

In 2007 Amadou became the first in his family to finish high school. His final exam results were good except for English and math, two subjects which Gambian schools teach badly and which most students fail. He spent a year studying both subjects in the university's Access Program, passed the exams, and in the fall of 2008 was fully admitted to the university.

When our students leave the village and move to the metropolitan area for high school and college, most of them face hardships which American students would find hard to imagine. Our scholarship program does not provide housing. Students live with relatives, often in crowded conditions, or wherever they can. Amadou is no exception. Since high school he has lived in a tiny, one-room apartment, which he shares with two other students. There is no electricity and no window. The only light comes from the open door which leads out to a crowded, noisy courtyard. The only place Amadou can study is in a library.

Ousman Jarju, 25, joined our program when he was in eighth grade at the Salikenni school. In 2006 he became the first in his immediate family to finish high school. Under our sponsorship, he spent the next two years studying accounting at the Management Development Institute, a local business college. Last year he got a full-time job as an accountant in the Gambian Interior Ministry.  He is now helping to support his family. While continuing to work full time, he began in February, 2010, on a part time basis, a course at the university which will lead to a bachelor's degree in accounting. We are happy to pay his tuition.

As one of our senior students, Ousman has played an important, unpaid role in the scholarship program, by providing advice to our younger students.

University, Here We Come!

The University of The Gambia's Access Program is designed for applicants who are promising but who fall short of its entry requirements in a few subjects. Students attend university classes in those subjects, usually English and math, for a year. Then, if they pass exams, they are fully admitted. We have two promising students in the Access Program this year.

If sheer determination will win entrance to a university, Binta Njie, 22, will no doubt make it. She is the daughter of Masanneh Njie, an elderly Salikenni man who, before his retirement, spent many years as an activist trying to persuade the government and private groups to help local fishermen obtain better boats, motors, nets and other equipment. Her mother, Fatou Jamba, is a cook at the Salikenni village school.

Binta joined our program in 2003 in grade 7. One of her eighth grade teachers described her as the best of the girls in his social studies class. To everyone's surprise, at the end of grade 9, she failed the exam which determines eligibility for high school. We urged her to repeat grade 9. She refused. Instead, her family put her into a metropolitan high school and somehow managed to pay for her tenth grade year. She did so well, that we brought her back into the scholarship program in grade 11. She began knocking on the university's door last August, even before her grade 12 results were available. When some students apply for higher education, we often have to take them by the hand and walk them through the admissions process. Binta had everything organized. We had only to write the Access Program check. Our manager, Fatou Janneh, sees Binta as a potential role model for our younger girls.

Modou Lamin Darboe is a slender boy with a ready smile. People call him Lamin. He is an exception to our policy in that he did not actually grow up in Salikenni or its satellite villages. His father, Yusupha Darboe, was a citizen of Salikenni who became a teacher and was posted in various schools around the country. The father kept Lamin with him on these travels, which included one year teaching in Salikenni itself. That was when Lamin was picked by our selection committee, made up of local citizens and teachers.

He has proved to be a reliably good student, completing Masroor Senior Secondary School in 2009. His father died during the latter part of that year, leaving Lamin in a quandry. Part of him wanted to take a quick business course of some kind in order to quickly find a job and begin helping to support his extended family. We urged him, if at all possible, to try for the university, and that is what he finally chose. He is taking the Access course this year in English and math. See essay he co-authored under In Their Own Words.

Finishing High School

Among our students who will complete high school this year, several appear to be strong candidates for higher education. Here are two of them.

Mariama Ceesay, 19, is a science student in 12th grade at Nusrat Senior Secondary School in the suburbs of Banjul. She wants to be a surgeon. Nusrat is one of the best high schools in The Gambia, and the entry requirements for its science track are particularly demanding. Few of our scholarship girls are willing to even try for it, arguing that they cannot do math.

That is why we were impressed with Mariama when she asked for a scholarship back in 10th grade, even though she has not lived in Salikenni, though her parents can claim village citizenship. We put her on a waiting list and finally gave her a scholarship when she reached 11th grade.

Mariama grew up in a mud-brick house with a corrugated metal roof in Latri Kunda, an outlying suburb of Banjul which is rapidly becoming more and more urban. There were many mango and orange trees, she recalls. The mango trees have since been cut down. Only the oranges are left. She has two older sisters and two younger brothers, all of whom went only to Islamic school.  Asked about her choice of the science curriculum she replied, "I know it is difficult, but at the end of the day you can help people."  She is not really interested in a nursing carreer. "There are many nurses but not many doctors, especially surgeons."

Abdoulie Bah, 20, is a commerce student in grade 12 at Nusrat Senior Secondary. He comes from Dobo, a village about an hour's walk from Salikenni. Though our scholarship program is centered on Salikenni it has long been open to students from Dobo and several other satellite villages whose children attend the Salikenni school for at least some grades. Abdoulie's family is of the Fula tribe, whereas most Salikenni families are Mandinka.

Abdoulie recalls getting up very early and walking 7 kilometers to the Salikenni School. When school closed at 2 he would walk back to Dobo and do whatever chores were needed - weeding, harvesting, tending cattle. Then he would take a bath, eat and then study by candlelight.

He came to our attention when he was in 10th grade at Nusrat. His father, Amadou, had just sold his last bull to pay for Abdoulie's schooling that year. The father's primary income came from tending other people's cattle, but he had had a few of his own. In recent years he had sold two bulls to put two of Abdoulie's older brothers through high school.

The father said he would have no way to pay for Abdoulie in 11th grade, so we took him into the program that year. See essay Abdoulie co-authored under In Their Own Words.

Two New Students

This year we added five boys and five girls to the program in grade 7 at the Salikenni village school. Here are two of them.

Bubacarr Bah, 16, also comes from the village of Dobo. The family compound is a circle of mud-brick huts with grass roofs. His father, Tamsir Bah, is a cattle raiser and farmer. The family is of the Fula tribe. Bubacarr's routine chores include milking cows. During the rainy season he and his father plow their small farm with a simple plow pulled by an ox. The father holds the two wooden handles of the plow. Bubacarr walks beside the ox guiding him in a straight line.

Bubacarr wants to be a teacher. He's an avid soccer player. He plays right or left halfback. His team is called the Obama Club. Its big rival is Daru, a neighboring village. Bubacarr says the Obamas are much better. "We always win 3-2 or 3-0."

Alimatou Ceesay, 17, lives with her mother in Salikenni. The front room of their house contains two cots and a table, no other furniture. The floor is bare cement. Alimatou's chores include cooking, washing, sweeping and fetching water. Her favorite meal to cook is domoda, made of peanuts, tomato, bitter tomato and a spice called jumbo.

Alimatou will need help in learning to read in order to succeed in school. Like many of our new students, her reading level is far below her grade level. She has not decided what she would like to do with her life.