The Gambia First Lady citation

Her Excellency, Mrs. Fatoumatta Bah-Barrow The First Lady of The Republic of The Gambia

Her Excellency Mrs Fatoumatta Bah-Barrow is a philanthropist par excellence, the Chief Patron of the Women Enterprise Fund of The Gambia and the First Lady of The Republic. Over the past five years, she has emerged as a national treasure for the country, transforming and safeguarding the lives of Gambian Women, Children, the vulnerable and people with disabilities. In both the rural and urban communities, Her Excellency through her FaBB Foundation has dedicated her time and resources addressing the concerns of her people. Her many achievements include her boundless compassion at the peak of the Covid-19 global pandemic when she tirelessly distributed a Covid-19 relief package countrywide; providing rice, cooking oil, millet, sugar, detergents, hand sanitizers amongst other consumables to the vulnerable. Through the Women Enterprise Fund, she has worked in collaboration with the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Welfare to strengthen the capacities of 10,000 women and girls owned Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs) with the aim of increasing their income and providing livelihood skills. Her Excellency Fatoumatta Bah-Barrow has led her country through a case management system by raising awareness and sensitizing people on all forms of Gender-Based Violence. Through her collaboration with the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Welfare (MoGCSW), she has officially launched the national hotlines 1313 and 199 for Sexual and Gender-based violence and Children cases respectively. She also opened the shelter for victims of Gender Based Violence and provided sewing machines for the training of the victims to facilitate their reintegration into society. She supported the training of 45 women in honey processing and the use of honey and honey products to develop beauty products. She visited the shelter for children regularly, providing financial support and playing equipment for the children. She has provided thirty-four scholarships to potential Gambian doctors to specialise in fertility, embryology, sexual and reproductive health, diabetes cardiovascular prevention and oncology. Her concern for health extended beyond scholarships to providing sanitary materials to two hundred Gambian communities, the Gambia Prisons Department, Tanka Tanka psychiatric hospital, 51 Quaranic Learning Centres, and several conventional schools to help students return safely to schools after several months of school closure due to the COVID 19 pandemic. Her support for education, especially that of the girl-child and the special needs children is great and worthy of emulation. As the slogan for education is to be all inclusive, no ‘Child left behind’ the 1st Lady is very much interested in the general welfare and development of the differently abled children and this includes the need to train Special Needs teachers in the education system to give special attention to those group of learners in our classrooms. Presently there is a single itinerant teacher responsible for a cluster of not less than 12 schools and the ideal situation is to have a teacher or two in every school to cater for not only the educational, but the psychological, and mental needs such children. As the chief Patroness of the Paediatric Unit of the Edward Francis Small Teaching Hospital, she constantly supports the Kangaroo Mother Care, the special New Born Unit, as well as first babies born on first January (New Year’s Day) every year. Included in her future plans is to establish a special hospital for babies and new born; as well as a special hospital for cancer prevention, treatment and care. We are proud to say that as First Lady of The Republic of The Gambia, Madame Barrow’s leadership has enriched the lives of many Gambians.