Rosalind Harris is a long term supporter of and fundraiser for the Chimpanzee Rehabilitation Association (CRA). Ros, as she is called, came to know CRA’s founder Dr Stella Brewer OBE when they both lived in the same small village in Gloucestershire, England.
Intrigued by Stella’s stories of setting up the CRA, the Sambel clinic, the Horse & Donkey Association (HAD) and of supporting the Sambel village school, Ros & her husband came out in 2005 to see for themselves. On that visit Russell Harris helped install the Mira showers that his company had donated to Badi Mayo - the CRA’s splendid visitor facility.
Since then, Ros has continued to raise funds for CRA. In January 2009 Ros and two friends, Rosie Geagan and Hazel Mabbett, came out to assist Mboob, CRA’s nurse, in the Sambel clinic. As well as bringing assorted medical equipment they had also raised money for the local purchase of over 300 treated mosquito nets. The greater number of these was distributed in Mahmoudfana but some went to mothers of young children in Missira and to the staff of the HADA and CRA.
This is yet another chapter of the ‘ripple effect’ story in which the continued existence and well being of the CRA’s chimps in the government’s River Gambia National Park contributes in rather surprising ways to community developments to Niamina and CRR.