Fatou Fatty

The Gambia Health and Education Liaison Project (GambiaHelp) held its tenth (10^th) Anniversary fundraising dinner in Seattle at the Women’s University Club in downtown Seattle on November 7, 2009. The annual fund-raising event is geared to raising funds for Health and Educational Projects in the West African State of the Gambia, usually attended by high profile businessmen; doctors, educationists, volunteers, retired senior citizens and many ordinary hard working Seattleites who deeply care to contribute to improving the lives of Children and poor women in the Gambia.

GambiaHelp which is an all volunteer non-profit 501 c (3) Corportation based in Seattle Washington was founded by its current Director Shelby Tarutis better known in Gambia as Isatou Jallow a former Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV), who in the last ten years has made an incredible impact in the lives of hundreds of poor Gambian women and Children.

This small but dynamic humanitarian corporation for the past ten years has been engaged in wide varieties of microeconomic development projects geared towards uplifting the lives of local communities through sustainable development projects headed by members of the local communities.

Among the most notable projects GambiaHelp successfully implemented is the creation of fifty-five (55) Libraries built across the country where no Libraries have existed before. These libraries are fully equipped with books and learning materials and are located in local communities for easy access to educational materials. 

GambiaHelp also successfully built computer labs equipped with computers and internet access for students. Some schools that benefited from such projects include Saint Therese’s Middle School on Kairable Avenue, Armitage High School in George Town and the University of the Gambia among others. GambiaHelp Volunteer Corporation for the past several years also continues to ship containers full of text books to various Middle and Senior Secondary Schools as far as Basse.

GambiaHelp has also recorded significant success in combating the spread of Malaria by helping local women launch minor bed netting projects to prevent the deadly malaria disease from killing and maiming hundreds of children in the poor rural communities. They have also donated several hospital equipments and thousands of boxes loaded with Medical supplies to Bansang Hospital and Dankunku Health Center among others.

Other important successful ongoing projects includes the building of Skill Centers; Digging Wells, helping local women grow vegetable gardens, creating micro lending institutions for funding small businesses and providing educational scholarship to students by supplying year round learning materials through donation of backpacks to students.

Among all the impressive projects GambiaHelp has successfully implemented in the Gambia, there was one single project that particularly caught the emotional attention of this reporter. In the interest of disclosure this reporter has been a long time attendee of GambiaHelp’s fundraising and book sorting events. However, the story of one Fatou Fatty a resident of Dankunku who has been a long time volunteer of GambiaHelp on the ground was the story that defines GambiaHelp’s tremendous success story in the Gambia.  Fatou Fatty an ambitious young woman started a small poultry farm with about five (5) Chickens with the help of GambiaHelp and its’ volunteers. Dedicated and determined to put to work her farming skills, Fatou graciously took up the challenge and embarked on her poultry business. Starting out with merely five Chickens Fatou nurtured her small Poultry farm which grew to fifteen (15) Chickens within a short period of time.   From fifteen (15) chickens Fatou’s farm grew to seventy five (75) Chickens with GambiaHelp volunteers providing technical and moral assistance along every step of the way.

As the proverb goes, ‘it is better to teach a person how to fish rather than provide them with fish any time they need it’.  Fatou’s story validates a long standing theory that the best way to help improve the economic conditions and standard of living of a local population is to allow them to develop their own potential skills and use those skills to provide their own source of food supplies.

Beginning to realize her full potentials and smelling success along the way, Fatou became even more enthusiastic in not only growing her farm for her family’s consumption, but to take it to a whole new level and expand from a subsistence farming to a full commercial activity where she can begin to supply eggs and Poultry meat to the local markets at affordable prices. Amazingly, Fatou’s Poultry farm grew from seventy five (75) chickens to over four hundred (400) chickens. She now supplies tons of eggs and Poultry meat to surrounding markets and thanks to GambiaHelp Fatou’s story has become one of the most successful stories of Shelby and her corporation’s tireless efforts in the Gambia.

GambiaHelp is proud to report that Fatou is now on the Farmer's platform and an active member of the regional Poultry Commission where she can have direct impact on policy making and implementation which directly affects her business.

There are certainly thousands of women like Fatou Fatty who have similar potentials and the ability to develop their own micro businesses to provide not only for their families but to other consumers in the local communities. Fatou, like thousands of women in the Gambia are used to working long hard hours with little or no significant gains to provide for their families. At the end of every long working day on the farms and rice fields tens of miles away these women will tirelessly return to an empty home, get right back on their feet and try to prepare meals for the rest of the family.

Fatou’s amazing story could not have been realized without the unflinching efforts of Shelby Tarutis and GambiaHelp volunteers and donors across the United States and the local population in the greater Seattle area. It was on this same endeavor that donors gathered at this 10^th annual dinner to put together resources and continue to support this great humanitarian work GambiaHelp is embarked on in the Gambia. Events at the fundraising dinner included a live and silence auction. Entertainment was provided by a local African American women group called Sankofa who sang many songs reflecting the true stories of children and women in Africa.

Among the high dignitaries who attended the event were Peter Gishure CEO the African Chamber of Commerce of the Pacific Northwest (PNW); members of the International community who are actively working to reduce poverty, Susan Moen a long time volunteer of GambiaHelp, and many other friends and symphatizers of GambiaHelp. The live auction was hosted by Shelby's husband, partner and best support Jerry Tarutis. The auction raised over fifteen ($15,000.00) dollars that night.

Finally, this story cannot conclude without paying a special tribute to Shelby Tarutis better known in the Gambia as Isatou Jallow. Shelby fluently speaks Mandinka which allows her to go farther into a village community. She has been a great humanitarian who has deeply touched thousands of lives of Gambian Children and women. For Shelby (Isatou), it is all about the Children and the poor women many of whom have lost hope in life. It is about giving Gambian Children that last best hope and opportunity of getting a much needed education. It is about helping young girls go to School and develop their potentials to contribute to a better society. It is about helping those hard working women who watch their Children go to bed hungry or get sick and sometimes die from simple curable diseases. For Shelby it is about preventing that one Child from dying of deadly cerebral malaria by simply providing mosquito nets treated with insecticides.  Shelby and GambiaHelp do not only deserve commendation but she deserves nomination and to win the ultimate award of CNN Heroes of the Year, or better still the Nobel Peace Prize. The Gambian people shall forever be grateful to Isatou (Shelby) and all her volunteers and tireless donors.

To learn more about GambiaHelp or to support the incredible course of this corporation, please visit their website at http://www.GambiaHelp.org