Thursday 20 August | Yero S.Bah
Social Worker Highlights Limited Funding as Major Challenge in The Gambia
A seasoned Social Worker in the person of Mr. Omar B. Jammeh of Jambanjelly village has said that, lack of sufficient funding is one of the biggest challenges that social work projects suffer from in The Gambia, adding that the profession is all about sponsorship and program implementation for people from the grassroots communities.
The Sponsorship and Program Assistant responsible for Jambanjelly Community Association and its catchment areas such as Jambur, Mamuda, Rumba, Sarabiggy, and Pacholin, Omar B. Jammeh noted that, all the above communities are under his purview as social worker for Ding-Ding Yiriwa Federation, a local ChildFund affiliated federation in Kombo South, West Coast Region.
Omar made these revelations in an exclusive interview with GunjurOnline on Wednesday August 19, 2020 in Jambanjelly.
He further highlighted that, child sponsorship focuses on promoting programmatic development of the child by supporting and maintaining quality person-to-person relationship between the children and sponsors. “Our overarching core values in-corporates the principles of child protection and help ensure all children benefit equally from the sponsorship system.” Mr. Jammeh explained.
Jammeh added that, the sponsorship method looks at the programs and activities through the eyes of the families and children enrolled saying since all activities are focused on development, it should be enjoyable, fun as well as really accessible to all children.
The social worker argues that, the profession is very important as it deals directly with the grassroots communities to know their problems, their living conditions but lamented that communities are not supportive to social workers as expected due to what he described as the norms, traditional beliefs and the culture of silent in the country.
Meanwhile, the community officer enumerates some of the challenges faced by the profession and officials in the field such as inadequate funding, inadequate human resources but believesthat, the challenges could be averted if more funding is made available as well as recruiting more people to increase the human capacity but also reduce the workload on social workers in the Gambia. “The reason why I chose social work is to serve my people with the little experience and knowledge I got.”
He charged that, social work is the only work that one can interact directly and share with the communities.
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