GAMBIA TRIP (Inc Thames Path 100km Walk)

Wycombe Wanderers Sports & Education Trust (“WWSET”) and New Meaning (“NM”) share a common mission in the High Wycombe area; to enable and encourage personal development and life changing outcomes for local people.

For WWSET this social impact is delivered using sport as a vehicle to promote change, and for NM change is achieved via a programme of construction based vocational training which takes place at Toolshed, a social enterprise under NM management.
NM also fund a major initiative to build an entire new village in The Gambia, via their local charity, MoJo Foundation. 1000 paid training positions and new jobs will literally save lives and also encourage young adults not to travel to other countries for work.

In January 2018 a group of 18 volunteers from WWSET and NM are together venturing to The Gambia, a small country in West Africa, to undertake a two week trip centred around providing both construction labour and sports/activity provision for the benefit of the local population.

In addition to the trip to The Gambia, which will be financed via a variety of fundraising initiatives (including taking part in the Thames Path Challenge, a 100km walk), a ‘ring-fenced’ sum of money achieved via the fundraising efforts will allow for two additional projects to be delivered in High Wycombe.  One of these, to be delivered by WWSET, will be a sport & employability programme which will aim to benefit local residents who have arrived in the area as refugees or asylum seekers, whereas the second commitment will see a percentage of the finance generated used to offer free home improvement works to local people most in need. 

Hopefully this short but exciting trip will provide significant benefits to the local people of The Gambia as well as some hugely positive outcomes right here in High Wycombe!