The Antwerp – Banjul Challenge gives to communities

The health sector recently received a boost with a donation of 4 ambulances to communities in the Western Region and North Bank Region.

The communities of Jambangjelly, Tujereng and Siffoe in Kombo South and Njawara in the North Bank Region, each received an ambulance from the Antwerp– Banjul Challenge – a charitable organization dubbed Helping Hands, based in Belgium.
 
The challenge arrived in Banjul last month with eleven vehicles including the four ambulances. According to the organizer and chairman of the Antwerp-Banjul Challenge, Cor de Bresser and their local counterparts, 5 other vehicles have been donated to organizations to serve as utility vehicles whilst two will be auctioned by the Jammeh Foundation for Peace (JFP) and the proceeds be donated to projects identified by the JFP and donors. Members of the challenge were hosted to a reception on Friday March 20, 2009 at the Bungalow Beach Hotel by the JFP.

Speaking on the occasion, a member of the Foundation’s Board and Chairperson of its Fundraising and Finance Committee, Dr Arde Sarge, commended the participants and the Antwerp–Banjul Challenge for their remarkable contribution to The Gambia’s development process.  He told them that the founder and chief patron of the Jammeh Foundation for Peace, Professor Alhaji Dr Yahya Jammeh and the Gambian people are appreciative of their support. Dr Sarge enjoined them to serve as the Foundation and the Gambia’s goodwill ambassadors in Belgium. The executive director of the Jammeh Foundation for Peace, Ansumana Jammeh, echoed similar sentiments. He told them that the Gambian leader established the Foundation to complement his government’s efforts in improving the livelihood of Gambians and humanity at large.

For his part, the organizer and chairman of the Antwerp–Banjul Challenge, Cor de Bresse, explained that he was inspired by the hospitality of the Gambian people.  “Whenever we come, we are accorded warm hospitality and whenever we give, people express their gratitude and appreciation to us. We are very impressed and inspired by that”, he noted. He hoped that the ambulances and other donations would be used for their intended purposes.