.:. Projects  |  Projecten

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Projects is the way how Gambia Birding Experience does something back to the Gambian communities.
Our organization has started with the goal to create affordable birding trips for everyone who is not able to join those expansive commercial travel organizations. Those organizations only using The Gambia for there business and normally don't do anything back. 
Gambia Birding Experience wants to do thing differently and have taken on a view social projects to give something back to the Gambia and its people.
We started with the project below on the very first Birding Experience with the delivery of overhauled binoculars for birding guides.

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Project #1 | GBE sponsoring binoculairs for young guides

During the trip around Gambia in 2015 Henk and Foday visited many birding hotspots. On some of those locations local young bird guides trainees will show you the local birds in those forrest. 
We soon realized that these young boys and girls were very enthusiastic about birds but were using none or very poor quality bins. They were hold together by pieces of tape and some really were scratched and must be damaging for their eyes if they use those for long periods of time. After talking to some of these young kids it was sometimes the reason they drop out of the training.

We decided we wanted to do something about it and after some consideration it was obvious we were going to use the website and the social media for it. If you know somebody who has an older but decent set of bins we can donate to the these kids on our annual visit to Gambia please help us out and let us know by filing in this form. Maybe your parents used to do birding but the bins are eating dust in a closed stuck away i the back please get it out and help us help them. See the form below to donate your used bin and let us help more young guides who cannot afford to buy one themselves.
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Together with the Birdwatchers association we will pick the kids and hand over these bins for them to use during their education and who knows in 5 -10 years when you visit Gambia you will see them using your donated pair of bins, how great would that be?

​GBE already have handed out over 40 binoculars to as many young guides in training. ​
30 of them were donated by the Dutch Vogelbescherming "kijkers voor kijkers" who joined us in our effort to improve birding young kids.

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Project #2 | GBE sponsoring Tendaba school

Near Tendaba is a little school up the hill towards the photo hide.
Gambia Birding Experience decided to sponsor the school as much as possible. Over the years we have brought many toys, joy and fun to the children but also money to buy rice for those children that only get to eat on school when their parents are to poor to buy daily food.

We are so proud of the hard work the teachers and the principle put into this school and always looking forward to see them again when we visit Tendaba on our Birding Experiences.

When you go and like the project please be sure to visit the school and help us making the world a little better by helping them form time to time. Take some extra weight on the way up to carry some pencils, or other children material. On the way back you can use those extra kg's to bring home some souvenir like local carved wood as a nice reminder of your trip with us.

Or send us some goods you like to donate and we will take it with us on the next trip to the Gambia and donate it on your behalf to the children. If enough goods we send them per container chipping a couple of times a year. Today will collect them and when we are over w will deliver them at the school.

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Project #3 | GBE building community bird photo hides

Looking at the possibilities GBE decided to make an effort to create photo hides with the knowledge of the European photographers.
We recognized it was a great opportunity for the communities to take care of the birds and in the same time make some money by renting out these hides. After some time looking for the right spot Foday decided to create the first one near his own village with the people he knows very well and trust to help him out.

The idea is to make the first hide using local materials and let the village take care of the hide and the pool. They maintain the water level in the pool at all time and be sure to have bush around the pool so small birds can shelter for Sikra and other birds of prey. They need to keep the forest clear so we will have enough light at the pool and photographers will have the perfect spot to shoot. 

When this hide will be a succes we will roll it out to connected communities with their own habitat attracting other birds so we have a chain of hides in the Gambia for our customers.

GBE will make the hide differently to current hides. It will be made to have customers sit at the pool level like the European photo hides are proven to work very well and deliver the best shots. 
Keep posted so when we have the hide working it will be implemented into our Birding Experience programs.

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