Meet the team from TNT Benelux
When I first met the team, they were quiet just talking among themselves and looked excited, a little worried and unsure of what they will see when they arrived into Africa. Most have never been to Africa thus I could clearly understand their feelings as it was once mine too. My role is to facilitate the whole trip and ensure that the group goes through it safely and with a very enriching experience.
After a week in The Gambia, and be back home I realise what an impressive fieldtrip it was. We had a warm welcome by the WFP and the Gambian people. We had several meetings, so we know how the UN/WFP organisation works. We visited the Sea Port, Customs, Clearing and forwarding agents, transporters and the warehouse. We got a general idea of the supply chain. Also we visited two schools, an urban and an rural school, these schools received rice from WFP. The children are so lovely and give us an warm welcome, they were so happy that we visited their school.
We had a wonderful time in the Gambia but I was very happy to see my family again! I hope that I can convince all of you that the WFP is really doing a great job in the Gambia. I'll never forget the warmth of the gambian people, the smile on the faces of the gambian children in the schools and their endless gratitude towards the WFP and TNT Express. The sound of their voices seemed like music to the ear...
The current project stage of the schoolfeeding in the Gambia will end next summer.
The WFP in the Gambia is working on a strategy that the local schools should create their one contribution by creating and maintaining a schoolgarden. Kids can learn a lot by working in this garden.
On thursday we've visited a school in the north-east part of the Gambia. Ik took us a 3 hour travel by boat and car. In this area of the Gambia you see the kind of houses as we see on TV. Build up with palm tree leaves and construction material. Not very stable and you can't even call it a house.
Today we followed the total logistics chain. We started in the port of Bajul to see where the containers come's in. Further we visited the customs department and had some discussions with the master of the Port operations, the customs officer and tax department. Also in the Gambia there are strict rules and policier regarding security and customs, like we have in Benelux. It gives issues sometimes to get the food transported through the port to the logisitics warehouses of the WFP.
Today we had a big operational day. We visited the port and customs and saw a lot of containers but no sea!We shook hands with a lot of people that were probably very important. We also saw workers unloading the WFP container:it contained over a 1000 bags of rice.TNT might be the most admired company but we ( the ladies) admired the most beautiful sixpacks ;-) ( sorry Mark).The most hilarious moment of the day was that I stepped in a footbath at the beach ( in the dark) and wetted my feet including my shoes.......!You can take me everywhere, but only once...
Today we visited a primary school and it we received a warm welcome from everyone.
We played a soccermatch against the children of the school: we lost the match but the atmosphere was great! (much better than in Belgium).
We dined in a dutch/german restaurant and it was nice. Looking forward to tomorrow!
We're in the Gambia since monday evening. Today we had an briefing with the entire WFP staff in Gambia. We introduced TNT and our Team and the WFP team did the same. It's good to have a real understanding of each others business, so that we can support eachother better.
We visit the WFP warehouses, willed with rice, salt, palmoil and yellow spil peas. A lot of food is there available and the do organize regular transport into the schools within the Gambia. We discussed how the transport is organized and will look in it during this week.
