Newsletter June 2024
Published June 18, 2024
Dear sponsors and supporters!
Another school year is coming to an end. New students are graduating and can look back on 15 years of education, something you’ve played a vital role in. Without you, and all the other wonderful sponsors and supporters, this wouldn’t have been possible. You are the financial backbone of the entire Butterfly Friends organization, and we are deeply grateful for the support you provide.
The students who are now graduating are very fortunate. As mentioned earlier, most of them will go on to college or university, or find a job that not only supports them but often a large part of their family as well. In any case, we are very pleased with the progress we see with each new graduating class and with the hope that shines in their eyes. We are confident that they will be of great help in building up The Gambia in the future.
In this newsletter, you’ll find a bit about the steps we’ve taken in recent months to ensure a secure future for Butterfly Friends. At the annual meeting in April, a restructuring of the organization was approved, with an executive director and an independent board.
Furthermore, a sponsor has given us a unique opportunity to try something new, to see if we can bring even more wonderful volunteers on board. We’ve just launched a recruitment campaign with an absolutely incredible grand prize. The winner will receive 20,000 kroner to cover travel and accommodation, so they can join our sponsorship trip to our schools in The Gambia in February 2025.
Last but not least, you can learn more about how we identify the children who will start first grade at our preschools in Brikama and Ebo Town. Enrollment for the 2024–2025 school year is well underway and will be fully completed next week.
Change in Butterfly Friends’ Leadership
About 22 years ago, a small movement began that came to be known as Friends of Ebo Town. The driving force behind it all was Anbjørg Juliussen from Vikersund, who saw a great need to provide children and young people in The Gambia with an opportunity for education. Gradually, she brought many dedicated volunteers on board, and over the course of just over 20 years, that small seed has grown into a fantastic organization brimming with confidence—Butterfly Friends.
But none of us are getting any younger, and neither is Anbjørg. That is why she has now taken the step of stepping down from the Butterfly Friends board and handing over the reins to younger leaders. Susan Buttingsrud is the new board chair, and Stig Jørstad is the vice chair, but fortunately, we’ll still be able to benefit from Anbjørg’s experience and expertise, as she has agreed to continue as executive director. This means she remains involved in day-to-day operations and implements the board’s decisions, but she no longer has voting rights at board meetings.
To help Butterfly Friends recruit new sponsors, a sponsor
recently donated 20,000 kr as a prize for our new recruitment campaign. The money will be used to fund
a trip and stay for one of the new sponsors—or the person
who recruited them—to our schools in The Gambia in February 2025.
If you’d like to enter the contest—and maybe be the lucky winner—
you must recruit someone who is willing to pay 200 kr/month
to Butterfly Friends for at least 12 months.
The more people you recruit, the greater your chances of winning.
The information we need from the new sponsor
(and the person who recruits them) is as follows:
1. Name 2. Address 3. Cell phone number 4. Email address
This information can be sent either by email to
ronny.stulen@gmail.com or by text message to 936 59 511.
If the new sponsor would like us to arrange a tax deduction for a donation to a charitable
organization, they must provide their personal identification number (11 digits).
It is not sufficient to simply list the expenses on your tax return.
New Students in Brikama and Ebo Town
Last week, the 25 young children shown in the photo below were selected for our new first-grade class at the preschool in Brikama. They were among the many young people who do not have access to public schooling and who would therefore have been left with no options at all. All of them come from poor families who are overjoyed that their daughter or son is getting this opportunity. As before, we prioritize admitting as many girls as possible. Our goal is to have 80% girls, and we will reach that goal this year. In Brikama, we’re admitting 20 girls and 5 boys, and in Ebo Town, 60 girls and 15 boys.
The photos on the left are from one of the trips that Principal Sofie Sarr and our administrator, Samba Touray, have taken. They go from house to house talking to parents to find our new students. It’s important to us that we find the poorest of the poor—those who have no other options.
