GLOVE started its juvenile amputee programme in February 2019. Child amputees are frequently not at school, due to the expense of uniform, books, and shoes. Amputee children are not expected to become anything other than a beggar so families are forced to use their limited resources on children who can provide for the family.

GLOVE aims for these children to be accepted by their families as worthwhile members of the family unit. Accepted by their peers, by their local communities and by society at large.

There are many people living in Gambian villages who are drinking contaminated water from open wells and many children continue to die unnecessarily every year as a direct result from diarrhoeal and other water borne diseases.

This is totally preventable with GLOVE’s Safe Drinking Water Systems; these solar water system and hand pump renovation projects provide access to safe drinking water for over 25,000 people.

Two of GLOVE’s water systems also supply water to village community gardens. These gardens offer the whole village the opportunity to farm vegetables throughout the year, directly improving the nutritional status of the whole village and providing an income with surplus vegetables being sold to pay for school fees and food that can’t be bartered for. GLOVE works alongside the villagers to train them on how to make their vegetable beds and how to water, weed and take care of the gardens.

Most of the rural villages rely on wells with hand pumps for their water supply, hand pumps which were installed between 25 and 30 years ago. Whilst the villages can pay to replace some of the small parts such as bearings and chains, the heart of the pump, the cylinder, is too expensive for them to replace.

The average cost of replacing one cylinder is over £300 plus labour costs which is beyond the means of the average village. With one of its partners, GLOVE renovated 11 hand pumps across nine different villages. This renovation also included the cement surrounding the pump areas as well as rebuilding the water troughs for the animals.

Toilets in rural villages are a hole dug in the ground after the rains have finished. Within a few months when the rains come the filled pits overflow and contaminate the water supplies which are mainly hand dug wells.

GLOVE works with villages to dig safer toilets. These are lined and dug much deeper so that they will not contaminate the local drinking water. Safe composting toilets not only improve the whole sanitation process but also generate much needed compost for the farms.