At Latrikunda Lower Basic School we are growing tomatoes and lettuces.

1. Greetings from The Gambia. How is everybody in England? We want to write and tell you what we have been doing in Gambian schools to look after our environment. We are calling our presentation Re-Use, Reduce, Recycle.

2. First we want to tell you that on February 18th we did not go to school. It was Independence Day and a public holiday so we could all celebrate gaining independence for the British 49 years ago in 1965. Since 1965 we have ruled ourselves. Many people marched in parades.

3. We are very concerned about global warming in The Gambia because we are a very flat and low lying country. If the ice at the north and south pole melt and the sea rises just a few metres much of The Gambia would disappear under water!

4. In September the UN world food programme stopped providing food so we could have a free lunch at school. So our President said every school must start a market garden and we must “GROW WHAT WE EAT AND EAT WHAT WE GROW” . Here at Latrikunda Lower Basic School we are just starting our garden. Because it is the dry season we need watering cans so we can water the plants every day.

5. We have all been planting seeds. These are orange trees and it will take five years before we pick any oranges so we will have to be patient.

6. Here at Manduar Lower Basic School we are clearing the ground so we can plant cassava. Do you grow and eat cassava?

7. At Latrikunda Lower Basic School we are growing tomatoes and lettuces.

8. We do not use many carbon fuels because we do not own cars or travel much. We walk a lot and carry things. Some people have bikes.

9. A lot of people use bicycles and donkeys and carts are still in use.

10. When we do travel longer distances we use taxis and town buses.

11. We do not use so much electricity. In fact many compounds still do not have electricity. Those that do use it mainly for lighting the compound at night and more and more people are buying televisions. Richer Gambian people are buying fridges and even air conditions units and these use up a lot of electricity. The problems is our power station at Kotu runs on oil and so produces carbon dioxide.

12. We know we must try to make less use of electricity and to use it efficiently. We are starting to use energy saving bulbs in our schools and compounds.

13. So The Gambia are looking at ways of using renewable energy. On The coast there is usually a wind off the sea so we are starting to use wind turbines to generate electricity

14. And of course we have good sunshine most days of the year so we are starting to use solar panels to generate electricity.

15. The trouble is that almost all of our compounds are still using wood for cooking.

16. We are cutting down trees to get wood but the forest are starting to disappear. And we know trees are important because they take CO2 out of the air as well as cleaning it.

17. So we are looking at other ways of heating our food. This cooker burns peanut shells. We have lots of peanut shells in The Gambia because we grow and export peanuts. The photos show devices that concentrate the suns rays to heat food.

18. We know we have to conserve water but we don’t think we use that much in our homes. That is because most of use don’t have running taps in our compounds. We have to carry water from the local stand pipe.

19. And we don’t have washing machines and dish washers that use electricity and lots of water. We wash our clothes and dishes by hand. And as Muslims washing and cleanliness is very important to us – but we only use a bucket of water for our morning wash. Its called an African shower.

20. And because we do not have much money we think we are good at re-using and recycling things. It is very hot here so we drink lots of water. We buy it in plastic bags and bottles and these become litter. At Siffoe Lower Basic School they collected the plastic bags and bottles and built a small house.

21. We stuffed the plastic bags inside the bottles. This made them stronger. The builders then put them inside wood and wire frames to make house.

22. Here is the house nearly finished.

23. Here are Star Preparatory some cement has been delivered to make some walls. We will ask the builders to give us the bags. Do you know why? The strong paper the bags are made of is great for covering exercise books and texts books. And thatnis what we have done here at SannehMentereng Lower Basic School

24. We know The Gambia is a small country. It has less than 2 million people. But we know we must all do what we can to look after the environment and stop making carbon dioxide. We hope you are doing what you can too. Bye for now.