School Twinning

Derwentwater Primary School in Acton has twinned with the Sohm Lower basic school. This has establish some real international friendship links between the two sets of pupils, which will only get stronger, over time.

Sandra and John from the charity have run two, day-long sets of whole school assemblies on the links, at Derwentwater school. These have involved talking about life in Africa, for children. The Derwentwater pupils have written whole class diaries for us to take to Sohm and created school friendship songs and poems, to share. During Black History Month we held another series of assemblies, around the theme of 'African masks'. This resulted in a series of remarkable class masks making competitions, which we have judged (they were all winners!).

The Acton school has enthusiastically embraced fundraising for their Sohm friends via raffles, sponsored no-uniform days and stalls at summer and winter fairs. Their efforts have raised over £500, which will be spent directly on meeting some of the educational needs of their Gambian colleagues.

We will bring back records of the Sohm pupils' appreciation and school work, when we return to the UK in the spring of 2013, to give to the Derwentwater pupils.

Derwentwater pupils participating in an 'African Masks'
assembly, during Black History month 2012

Meanwhile, we are actively looking for a UK secondary school to twin with the Upper School in Sohm. We would liaise between the two schools, who would themselves determine the nature of their mutual co-operation. The possibilities are only limited by the imaginations of the participants!

If you think that you or your school might be interested, drop us a line and we'll be happy to come along and speak with your governors/PTA/staff/students to discuss the possibilities.