Christmas Shoebox Appeal 2025
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November 27th 2025 View Article
Former Student returns to talk about her trip to The Gambia
Category - Community
We were delighted to welcome our former student, Rosealice Byrne, back to Ballyconnell NS last week to regale our 4 th , 5 th and 6 th class students with details of her recent trip to The Gambia in West Africa.
Rosealice, a member of the class of 2019 and currently a 6th year student in Coláiste Bhríde Carnew, was accompanied by fellow student, Seren Byrne, and their teacher Ms Aimee Walsh. Rosealice and Seren had prepared a very engaging Powerpoint presentation about their trip which was part of the Self Help Africa initiative. More information about Self Help Africa is available at this link https://selfhelpafrica.org/ie/ .
Their visit coincided with the most torrential rain of the year and a thunderstorm which resulted in flickering lights and a malfunctioning interactive board! Rosealice and Seren coped brilliantly with these minor setbacks, pivoting to show the students some mementos of their trip including an indigenous drum and a woodcarving.
It was a pleasure having Rosealice and Seren visit to talk to our students about their trip. Who knows, maybe some of our listening students have been inspired to be the sort of people who strive to make a difference in this world. Míle buíochas to Ms Aimee Walsh for co-ordinating the visit and to Coláiste Bhríde for freeing up Rosealice and Seren just a matter of weeks before their Leaving Cert.
Below 4th class students tell us some things they learned from the girls’ visit!
“The Gambia has lots of different music and musical instruments,” – Caoimhe
“Gambian sport is very competitive,” – Sam
“Monkeys are very common,” – Thomas
“The green tail monkey is friendly; the red monkey is a bit shy,” – Niall, Ellie, Patrick, Max
“All kids go to the same school at different times. There are about 2,000 students altogether,” – Catherine
“Gambia has an instrument that looks a bit like a drum and is called a djembe,” – Cathal
“Red monkeys do not like bananas; they only eat peanuts,” – Dany & Charlotte
“The Gambian people are happy even though they have so little,” – Emily
“Gambians are very competitive when it comes to soccer and musical chairs,” - Kyla
“They play beach soccer where it’s married versus unmarried even if the teams are not even. E.g.: 50 vs 3!” – Peter
“There is a farm called the Woman’s Onion Farm that only women work at to make money. There’s only 2 men who work on it,” – Sarah
“Vultures are common in the Gambia,” – Oskaras
“They get money from collecting oysters from the roots of mangrove trees,” – Carla
“They play soccer on the beach,” – Jack
