Remarks made by the Chairperson- Mrs Vivat Thomas-Njie at the Handing Over Ceremony of Certificates
Representative of the Honourable Minster of Health, the Perm Sect, the WHO representative, the Chairman Hospital Management Board, the executive Director, Women’s Bureau, the Chairman Medical Advisory Committee RVTH, Board members of the RVTH, Matron Jagne, Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, it is indeed a great honour for me to stand on behalf of the FDNF to address this august gathering.Over the last two years, The Francis DeGaulle Njie Foundation has been engaged in collaborative work with the Royal Victoria Teaching Hospital; this work started in October 2008 and this is a follow up to what was started then.
Mr Chairman please allow me to give a brief synopsis of the foundation and what we have been doing since its inception.
The Foundation was launched four years ago by the family and friends of the late Francis Degaulle Njie, after he passed away on the 22nd May 2005 after a long battle with brain cancer.
Degaulle was a dynamic young man who believed in excellence and so worked hard to excel in all he did in his short, very brief and wonderful life. He believed in helping others and always said that everyone should be given the opportunity to achieve their dream.
The foundation was launched on the 2006 by his family, friends and well-wishers. The foundation is a registered charitable organisation which started with eight- Board of Trustees members, working with 3 dedicated Advisors, and was given the mandate to initiate a programme of activities in two areas geared towards the social advancement of young Gambians, namely: Education and Health Promotion, particularly in the area of cancer work.
In accordance with the Foundation motto, “helping young minds achieve excellence”, the Board of Trustees agreed to focus initial activities of the Foundation towards the realisation of two main aims. These are:
1. To enhance the educational system in The Gambia by providing support to science students.
2. To raise cancer awareness, engage in health education and promotion, and provide support to affected individuals and their families.
With these in mind we established two programs, namely: the Education Programme; and the Health and Charity Programme. The foundation initially started work with the Education programme and so far has achieved the following:
i. Scholarship: the foundation donated 3 sets of trophies to senior secondary schools in the Greater Banjul area and established links with them. We have continued to sponsor the prizes for the winners of these trophies in excellence in Physics, Maths, Computer Studies and General Excellence at these schools namely: Saint Augustine Senior Secondary, Gambia senior secondary School and St Joseph’s Senior Secondary at their speech & prize-giving day ceremonies.
ii. Sponsorship: the foundation has sponsored students from the first two schools over the last 3 years and during this academic year have sponsored the education of 6 science students from two of them for their schools fees, books etc to the tune of D6000 per student.
iii. Public Address System: Recently the foundation installed a Public Address system at the SASSS hall, and at our last AGM held in May 2010, we had a motivational lecture on Information Technology, we hope this will be the first of many more motivational lectures to come.
iv. The UTG: Early this year we donated over 75 books to the University of The Gambia; these were mainly IT, Maths and Science books of the late Francis Degaulle and some literature books for the university library. The books will be displayed in a designated corner in their general library in memory of the late Francis Degaulle Njie and the foundation will be responsible for updating that corner on a regular basis.
Our second mandate was to work in the area of Health and Charity:
The foundation had earlier embarked on cancer awareness raising activities during our first two fund-raising seminar/dinner held in 2007 and 2008, these were widely publicised and some of our speakers spoke about common cancers affecting the lives of the Gambian people.
At these seminars we had health professionals from various health institutes including this noble teaching hospital dilate on relevant cancer topics and also cancer incidence in the Gambia:
Our first contact with the Royal Victoria Teaching Hospital was in 2008, when we officially met with the Chief Medical Director, and through which we were able to establish link with the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology. With this partnership the foundation sponsored the training of 35 midwives and nurses in a 3 days program on cervical cancer screening.
Since that first collaborative work with the hospital, the Health and Charity Committee has kept in close contact with the RVTH. And recently the Matron and the department of Obstetrics & Gynaecology jointly identified an area of need that will impact on the training given earlier on cervical cancer screening; this was to refurbish the new Cervical Cancer Screening Clinic. The foundation was happy to take up the work and has just completed the refurbishment of the new unit. This new unit will help the 35 nurses/midwives trained earlier on cervical cancer screening to better utilise their skills.
Cervical cancer being one of the commonest cancers affecting the lives of women in the country can be better managed with good prognosis if detected early. And therefore the opening of the screening clinic is a laudable achievement by the hospital that must be commended.
Mr Chairman, I implore all present especially, the office of the Women’s Bureau and the WHO, together with all other stakeholders here present who in one way or the other work with women, to spread the message to all our womenfolk, especially women within our rural communities, about the availability of such a valuable health service. And we hope that with future collaboration with the hospital, the foundation will continue to dialogue with women in the Gambia by sensitizing them on the signs and symptoms to watch out for and how to get the necessary access to care.
It is only through such collaborative efforts that we can together fight such a menace and give our womenfolk good health and thus making them effective development partners.
Without a sound mind and a healthy body there can be no development, and so on behalf of the BOT and Advisers of the foundation, I pledge our foundation continuous support in the fight against cancer.
Mr Chairman, we are gathered here today to conduct two activities, one being a bit late in the day, but the old adage states “better late than never”, is to hand over certificates to all those who were trained two years ago, the second will be done a little later on in the programme, which is to officially hand over to the hospital the completed refurbished unit.
Mr Chairman, let me take this opportunity to say that we are delighted to be associated with the RVTH and would be happy to be called upon whenever the need arises again to work with the hospital in the fight against cancer in the country and beyond.
On this note I thank you all for your attention
Vivat Thomas-Njie