GAMBIAN TALENTS PROMOTION
3909 164th St SW 201, Lynnwood, WA 980876905

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Organizations Filed Purposes: Connect West Africans in Washington with local resources and bridge the gap between us and the wider community. Our goal is to promote West African culture, inform and educate these communities to discover their potential and facilitate communication in the use of information technologies and work of arts for the fulfilment of their full potentials. GTP's vision is to see a vibrant, dynamic and sustainable creative civil society sector engaged in qualitative practices in the media and arts in their own right, in a manner that contributes to development, human rights and democracy and to eradicate poverty in our society.

Community programs - maintain community integration and cohesion in the form of regular grandma connections and events. Adult literacy programs - provide adult learning classes in English, Math and Arabic as well skill training for the youth. Back to school program - support K1-K12 pupils and their families in preparing for the new academic year. Grocery, cash, bill payment assistance - assist eligible community members with free groceries, cash assistance for college going youths, bill payment assistance (rental assistance, utilities), and many more. Community awareness programs - advocacy and awareness programs including but not limited to cancer, census, sounds of Africa festival, immigration, jobs and social welfare, interpretation, and translation services and many more.

Youths and Children Support: Gambian Talents Promotion (GTP) on Saturday August 29th, 2020 successfully held our annual back to school and grandma appreciation day for the Gambian community in the Seattle metro area. This is the 4th year that GTP is organizing such an event for Gambian families in Washington during which we supported them with back packs, school supplies, laptops/tablets and the enabling environment for our kids to learn about the positive cultures and history of their parents birth country as well as interact with one another. This jam-packed event of fun which was usually held at a local park in Snohomish or King County was turned into a drive through event due to the Coronavirus pandemic. This year, we also added a new component which is the grandma appreciation. We feel that our mothers play a big role in helping us raise our kids according to our culture and tradition. For this reason, we decided to celebrate our moms and thus on the same day, we gave $2,000 to about 50 grandmas. We gave out 200 backpacks, School supplies, goodie bags, toys and other gifts, swags and giveaways to the kids. On the last day of Muslim Ramadan, GTP partnered with the Bilal Islamic Center (BIC) to treat our kids on Eid Day. The BIC provided "grab and go" goodie bags, ice cream and GTP bought toys for the center to add to the package for the kids as salibo or ndewenal (gift). We believe that if we encouraged our kids to fast the whole or a great part of the Ramadan, it is nice to treat them with some fun stuff such as the above so that they will appreciate the religion more. This is all part of teaching them to appreciate the religion. On Eid day, between 4pm and 6pm, the kids came to the Bilal Islamic Center to collect their Salibo/Ndewenal. On Friday September 4th, 2020, Gambian Talents Promotion in Washington provided grocery assistance and Covid-19 prevention gear to about 25 Gambian students. The program targeted both new (freshmen) and returning students. Each of the freshmen were given a $100 gift card while the returning students get $75. Everyone had a facemask, 2 different types of wipes, glue, a couple of pairs of socks and food and refreshment. GTP also provided various types of assistance to the single moms in the community. GTP provided grocery assistance, utility bill payment, medical bill payment, dara tuition payment, daycare, clothes, shoes or other basic needs for the kids. .

Seniors Support: In the 1st week of Ramadan, Gambian Talents Promotion (GTP) provided 75 members of the Seattle Gambian grandma's Association with Sukuri ndogu/Ramadan gifts. Ramadan is particularly important to our community and we brought along some traditions from back home that we still do in the county. One of our Ramadan traditions is to give Sukuri Ndogu (Ramadan groceries) to our parents and elders of the community at the beginning of Ramadan. This year, on April 23rd, a few days before Ramadan started, GTP was able to distribute Sukuri Ndogu to 75 elders in our community through our COVID-19 funds from Community Foundation. During this engagement, we passed on census printed materials, giveaways and swags and verbally engage them to fill out the census if they have not done so. We also streamed it live on both our Facebook and YouTube pages attracting a cumulatively about 10,000 views. In the 2nd week of Ramadan (On May 2nd), in collaboration with the 2020 census, we provided Ndogu/Iftar (food eaten in the evening to break a fast) to 223 community members in the Seattle metro area. The GTP Iftar/Ndogu to go for the Gambian community in Seattle was a big success. We anticipated to feed 130 people initially, but we ended up feeding 223 people. That is 93 more people than we budgeted for. The first 53 people came between 1pm and 3pm and the 170 came between 4pm to 7pm. We provided food to everyone who came except for those who left because of the long line. We had a backlog from the earlier orders which led to some people leaving before the second round was done. We also had 93 more people than we catered for which made it worse. The restaurant was able to cook for everyone to take some food home. In fact, we even called those who left before the food was ready and offered to deliver their plates to them. We were happy to deliver some food for some people at their homes. In the last week of Ramadan, we organized a virtual Lailatul Qadr/celebration of the night of power via zoom for the Muslims in Snohomish County which was streamed live on GTTV. We invited Alhagie Ebrima Bah Mamakoto and Sheikh Bakary Sanneh who spoke about the importance of Lailatul Qadr and how to raise our kids according with our religion and culture. This year's celebration was done virtually via zoom which was broadcast live on GTTV online TV. 53 people logged into the zoom meeting.

Covid-19 Support: Gambian Talents Promotion (GTP) distributed facemasks, gloves, wipes and hand sanitizers to the community. GTP also provided grocery assistance and bill payments for Gambians/Africans and Muslims whose lives or livelihood are affected by Covid-19. The organization received funding from community Foundation of Snohomish County to support members of our community whose lives and livelihoods are affected by Covid-19. The organization also received $29,285.00, of which $23,000.00 was to be used to help families affected by Covid-19 in one way or the other.

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