My Nonprofit Reviews

I enjoy volunteering for GambiaHELP. As an all volunteer organization, you really get to feel good about the great work being done. I especially like the support GambiaHELP gives women's groups to help them with village based programs like batik, soap making and other village industries that the women then use to help the entire village.

What really impresses me about GambiaHELP is that the volunteers work so hard to develop programs that help communities grow on a sustainable basis. They work with village elders and women's groups to make sure the project meets their needs and the community has to contribute 25%. It is amazing how eager the communities are for these small sustainable projects like dye-dying, mosquito nets, and soap making that they can make again and again to support their communities. This is really the model of "teaching the people to fish" rather than giving them a temporary handout.

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I am impressed the way Shelby Tarutis, Director of GambiaHELP, takes the time and effort to attend long and culturally involved meetings with the villages to make sure that GambiaHELP projects meet the needs of the community. The villages help to make the projects successful by providing labor, land and managing the project. One sample project is the milling machine. The village supplied the land and built the building. They also helped develop how the machine should be run. It is managed by the Women's Group. The man that runs it gets the chaff from the machine to feed his goats. When you have your rice milled, 1/10 goes to the Women's Group who redistribute it in time of need. A very successful and sustainable project. It also gives the women more time for other projects and learning instead of always pounding rice by hand. GambiaHELP is a terrific group, all volunteers and I think something like 95% of all their donations go directly to projects in The Gambia.

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