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Momodou
Denmark
11832 Posts |
 Posted - 04 Jun 2008 : 21:09:51
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Last night there was a Danish TV2 documentary called "They cheated my sponsor child".
The Journalist Mads Ellesøe showed in the program that Danish sponsorships to Gambian children's schooling never got through to the intended recipients. The documentary was about the Organization Gambias-Venner (Danish/Gambian Friendship Society: Gambia's Friends).
TV2 had visited 22 children in The Gambia, whose schooling ought to be paid by Danish godparents. But 20 of the children neither got their money or do not attend the schools they are supposed to according to Gambias-Venners' own list.
On the trip to The Gambia TV2 had among other things found a girl Fatou Sillah, who according to internal documents from Gambias-Venner was to have received money for her schooling. TV2 met Fatou Sillah at a slum in The Gambian capital, Banjul, and the girl tells them that it's her father, who pays for her schooling.
The father, Bai Mass Sillah, reported that a Danish woman turned up ten years ago and paid for about 120 crowns to Fatou Sillah's schooling. Since then, the father has neither seen Danes nor any money.
TV2 also met Fatou Sillah's Danish godparent, Allan Thams. Every month for ten years he had paid an amount of 80 Danish Crowns (about D350) to Fatou Sillah's schooling, but as he sees TV 2's recordings from Gambia, he had no doubt: "There must be somebody, who sits with quite bad taste in the mouth. Then it isn't an association. It's a business, that must give a nice surplus", said Allan Thams.
In the program, the Chairman of Gambias-Venner declined to speak to the Journalist who showed up at his residence asking for the whereabouts of sponsorship funds.
Gambias-Venner has taken care of sponsorships for more than 1500 children over 30 years. Thanks to Danish sponsors many children got the possibility to get an education and thus secure them a better future.
The organization also transports relief to The Gambia in containers and gets about one million crowns in public funding to these transports every year.
It is a fact that most of the beds in the Gambian hospitals including the new APRC hospitals and health centers were donated by Gambias-Venner, also many school furniture and wheel chairs.
Affairs of the Organization are managed by a sister Organization in the Gambia consisting of Gambians including one person at the Social Welfare Department. Currently all former members of the board of directors in the sister Organization in the Gambia and the one at Social Welfare have been replaced by new faces.
It has been reported today that a police investigation is on the way after the program whether any fraud was involved with the sponsorship funds.
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A clear conscience fears no accusation - proverb from Sierra Leone |
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