Case Study
In The Gambia, we enjoy supporting our employees and local communities through a range of activities which help to improve their access to education and overall well-being
Radville, The Gambia
Nema Kunku and Toubakuta
Radville Nemakunku Lower Basic School
Built as part of The Rati and Vilas Dhanani School Endowment Project, named after Radville Farms established by Wealmoor’s founders. Radville Nemakunku Lower Basic School officially opened in October 2018 to over 1000 children aged between 7 and 10.
Impressively, over half of the children are female. In fact, the gender balance is a rarity for Gambian society where many girls do not attend school due to inaccessibility.
It’s the only lower basic standard school in The Gambia which provides children not just with an excellent education but Radville Farms also provides free uniforms and educational resources. Additionally the school is provided with water and electricity supply and a full maintenance program delivering high standards of hygiene, safety and welfare.
The good news is that a further 18 classrooms are now being built so that the student population can effectively double to around 2,000.
What’s more, we’re overseeing the development of an agricultural garden which will link the school to Radville Farms to encourage pupils to embrace farming early in their lives.
Transportation
Access to transportation for employees and local communities can be a key challenge. To help with this, Radville for many years, has helped through the provision of the use of the company buses to ensure that many local children can get to and from school and to attend educational trips. They are also utilised to help local villagers travel at times which would otherwise be difficult to do so such as early in the morning or late in the evening.
Children's Engagement with Farming
Our Radville farm actively seeks to educate school children and students at all levels of education. Its organised tours and field trips are well received and allow company managers and teams to talk about produce, and the ways in which the farms operate. Radville is proud to work in collaboration with the Agricultural Research Institute.
Mothers Club
Radville Farms have assisted the school in forming a ‘Mothers’ Club’, specifically designed to help mothers take greater responsibility for their children’s welfare and education and to participate in the management of the school and raising of funds.
Women’s Empowerment Programme
We’re empowering women farmers with the skills and resources to grow produce. In providing production programmes and access to European markets for their goods, we are able to guarantee and income for their crops.
The programme has enhanced the lives of whole communities and we are proud to have received the “Treating People Fairly” award which recognises the outstanding efforts to reduce poverty and improve thousands of lives through sustainable farming in The Gambia.
​
Under our Women’s Empowerment Program we are working with 11 women’s gardens each of which accommodates about 200 women farmers. In these gardens, we have pioneered drip irrigation which has drastically reduced their manual labour and working hours.
Through these village farms, we are able to employ a further 1800 women on our farms. This way we’ve managed to secure and uplift their income potential by 800%. We’ve improved their quality of life drastically.
Environmental Sanitation
We care about the environment enormously, which is why our Radville farm frequently lends a hand to the local municipal council in numerous ‘cleaning up’ exercises. Our farm equipment is put to good use and there's one thing for sure, the community benefits.
Youth and Sports
Employee health and wellbeing is important to Wealmoor which is why our Radville farm helps to organise inter-location football tournaments. What’s more, we’ve a team that participates in the Nawettan Zonal football competition.
“We maintain a good close working relationship with the company, they provide us with technical assistance to improve our mango crops, and financing support for the purchase of inputs we need to manage the orchards.” Miguel Castro Juarez, Productor de Mango