Classroom 1 Gets Its First Tables and Chairs
In May 2019, Classroom 1 at Busumbala Nursery School took another important step towards becoming a real classroom rather than simply an empty building.
Thanks to the kindness of Aid2Gambia, we received ten tables and twenty chairs for the school. At that stage every piece of furniture mattered. We were still working towards opening the nursery and gradually turning the buildings we had constructed into spaces where children could actually learn.
At the time we hoped Classroom 1 might open in September 2019. That timetable ultimately proved far too optimistic, but these tables and chairs were nevertheless another very visible sign that the project was moving forward.
Help from Aid2Gambia
Our connection with Aid2Gambia came through Mark Hammans in England and Baba Bojang in The Gambia. The charity did far more than collect unwanted school furniture. Its work included educational resources, medical equipment, clothing and practical support for communities across The Gambia.
Mark, a retired Nottinghamshire Police sergeant, had been visiting The Gambia since the 1990s. What began with carrying useful supplies in suitcases grew into the registered charity Aid2Gambia and increasingly ambitious projects.
The ambulance runs
Among Aid2Gambia’s most remarkable projects was its ambulance programme. Redundant ambulances in Britain were obtained, repaired and prepared for a second working life in The Gambia. Students at West Nottinghamshire College were among those who helped restore vehicles and make them roadworthy.
The first major overland ambulance run left Nottingham on New Year’s Day 2017. Mark and the team drove two ambulances roughly 3,930 miles through France and Spain, crossed into Morocco and continued through Mauritania and Senegal before reaching The Gambia eleven days later.
Mark and friends would eventually make the extraordinary overland ambulance journey to The Gambia on two occasions. These were not vehicles placed on a ship and collected at the other end: the teams actually drove them across Europe and down through West Africa so they could be put back into service where they were needed.
Aid2Gambia’s own history records that one of those ambulances was called into action only a few months after arrival to help a woman suffering serious blood loss during childbirth — a powerful reminder of why the project mattered.
You can read more about Aid2Gambia and its work on the charity’s website.
A sad update: Mark Hammans, 1964–2026
Update, October 2026: We were very sorry to learn that Mark Hammans died on 16 September 2026, aged 62, after a short battle with cancer.
Mark devoted an enormous amount of time and energy to helping people in The Gambia. The tables and chairs in the photograph above are only one very small part of that story. His ambulance projects, medical and educational donations and years of practical fundraising made a tangible difference to many communities.
His family asked that donations in his memory should support Aid2Gambia, and his son Darren has also begun fundraising for the charity in Mark’s memory.
It remains to be seen how Aid2Gambia will move forward following Mark’s death. What is already certain is that his work has left a lasting legacy in The Gambia — including here at Busumbala Nursery School.
The school eventually opens
Our hoped-for September 2019 opening did not happen. Building, administration, funding and then the disruption of the following years meant the project took much longer than any of us expected.
Busumbala Nursery School was finally registered in September 2023 and welcomed its first class the following month. Looking back, photographs such as this one have become useful markers along a much longer journey: a room, then furniture, then teachers and, eventually, children sitting at the tables.
