Imagine trying to open a daycare setting far from home. Kris Koloszko describes the challenges of running a centre in The Gambia
Armed with a copy of the Children Act, the guidelines for sessional daycare and fond memories of cosy inter-agency team meetings, I suddenly decided to transport myself from Rotherham to The Gambia, in West Africa, with the intention of helping in the development of childcare services.
The past seven years haven't been easy. I was confident that I'd accumulated a wide range of personal and professional skills in the UK childcare sector. What I didn't know was what it is like to live and work in a country which is among the poorest in the world, a country which has a punishing climate alternating between periods of hot sunshine for most of the year and a humid wet season for the rest.
On arrival, I soon realised that the challenges were enormous: the language barrier, different foods, clothes, shops and transport systems were all strange to me. On top of that I had to consider premises, staffing, legal matters, tax and so on.
It dawned on me that I'd taken so many things for granted because they were so easily accessible in the West - in The Gambia I couldn't rely on those beautiful educational catalogues, grant aid or a trip on a Saturday afternoon to high street stores. Nor could I call a local childcare partnership for assistance - basically, I was on my own.
Thankfully I managed to exist on all those accumulated skills, and two years after my arrival a large house with extensive outdoor play space became a potential childcare centre site. It needed a lot of work and there was very little funding available, but thankfully there was lots of determination, creativity and the will to succeed.
Word gets about quickly around here and soon many people knew a British woman was opening a childcare facility. Families started to enquire and registration forms were produced on clapped-out photocopiers (when the unreliable electricity was available, of course).
The Gambia is a former British colony with English as the official language, but there is a diverse cultural population with seven major ethnic groups. I employed local Wolof and Mandinka tribe women and trained them in childcare skills.
Finally, in September 1996 Fajara Children's Centre opened. We offered sessional daycare for under-fives, five mornings a week. Despite a good take up we had a tight budget, but thankfully our landlord was considerate.
It felt like the world had changed for me when, in 2001, the British High Commission in The Gambia gave us a grant for a computer. My daughter Katie had joined me by this time and we were able to produce professional materials together. E-mail has opened up communication for us and the Internet is such a wonderful resource.
By 2003 we had accessed information about Early Learning Goals, the Foundation Stage Curriculum and Topic Webs. That wasn't all, we'd also made 2,000 bricks so that we could build our on-site daycare room, complete with a learning centre.
Outside there's a Mandinka dragon, called Ninki Nanka, carved from an old tree that had to be cut down. Children can play outdoors under the shade of a large eucalyptus tree.
Our service is now really in demand as families realise that our 'learning through play' curriculum is just right for three-year-olds. We print pictures with eucalyptus leaves, collect and inspect multi- coloured mini beasts, ride our bicycles through homemade paint and play music using instruments such as the balafon and kora (similar to the xylophone and guitar).
There are no strict childcare regulations in The Gambia and I guess our success is due to us adhering to England's sessional daycare regulations when it comes to staffing ratios and playspace. In fact, a recent visitor said we'd pass an Ofsted inspection - apart from our lack of enough toilets.
In our seventh year the future looks bright, and demand is high especially for a baby unit, nursery and reception class. We have found financial backing from an innovative Gambian businessman and together we will develop a purpose-built early years centre, incorporating all those features found back home in the UK, while maintaining the cultural diversity of the 'Smiling Coast' which is The Gambia.
