Friends of GOVI has been a registered UK charity since 1998. We support the only School for the Blind in the Gambia working with and alongside GOVI, The Gambian Organisation for the Visually Impaired.

Click on the picture to here the children singing their school song

The Gambia is Africa's smallest Independent nation situated on the West coast of Africa. It is a Commonwealth country. Whereas in the UK there are many wonderful services and facilities for the blind, in The Gambia, one of the poorest countries in Africa, there are very few. GOVI is a registered Gambian Charity, an amalgamation of the Gambian Society for the Blind (GSB) and the Gambian Association for the Blind (GAB). The GOVI Resource Centre at Kanifing houses both a newly built office complex for the GOVI board, sponsored by Muslim Aid UK and Friends of GOVI, and the School for the Blind, the building of which was largely achieved thanks to hard work and substantial donations from the Friends of GOVI. The outside wall of the site is painted with GOVI's policy.

GOVI's Community Integrated Rehabilitation of the Blind (CRB) project equips blind people with the skills to enable them to undertake independent income generating activities, and to become self-sufficient and respected members of their communities. CRB operates training courses, offers business start-up loans and funds community projects. GOVI also operates a fund to assist people who become blind as a result of old age, those for whom deteriorating health prevents them from continuing to meet their own basic needs and those involved in fire, disaster or accident. The board expresses the hope that this fund will reduce instances of begging on the streets.