THE Stourbridge News is joining forces with caring school pupils to help save young lives in Africa.

We have teamed up with Ridgewood High School to launch an appeal to raise £10,000 for a water pump and irrigation system in the Gambian village of Sintet.

The Well of Life appeal will be part of the Wollaston school’s annual Project Gambia initiative which develops farming in the drought-hit village.

Stourbridge News:

Last year, a village well was the scene of a tragedy when an eight-year-old boy named Mustapha fell in and died as he attempted to draw water.

Bev Hodt, assistant headteacher and Project Gambia leader, has been visiting Sintet with pupils from the school for the past four years and described the villagers’ desperate plight.

She said: “The community was living in basic conditions with no electricity or running water.

“Villagers had no way of growing crops in the dry season and any crops they did manage to grow in the rainy season were eaten by animals.”

In May 2012, with funding and support from Project Gambia, the villagers fenced off a 100 square metre area for planting crops.

Mrs Hodt said: “Over the past three years it has grown and grown - in March 2013 they extended it to 200 square metres of fenced land and in 2014 it was extended yet again to 400 square metres.

“They grow Cassava, corn, beans and cashew nuts and in the words of one Sintet villager ‘our children no longer go to bed hungry’.”

Following the tragic death of the young boy, attention has now turned to installing a pump system to provide the village with enough water to keep crops growing throughout the dry season.

Mrs Hodt said the 4,500 villagers have been left short of water and crops have not been able to grow after an increasingly drier rainy season.

She added: “This year has been so bad. The villagers have been in dire straits as they’ve had very little rain and even the rainy season has been a bit of a dry season meaning they have really struggled.

“If it wasn’t already bad enough that a child died when he fell into a well when collecting water, it has also put that well out of action.”

Ridgewood High School is also in talks with the University of Gambia to help set up the pioneering solar powered irrigation system and pump in Sintet as an ongoing project.

To donate visit www.justgiving.com/welloflifeappeal/ or text PROG15 and your amount, either £10, £5, £4, £3, £2, £1, to 70070.

People can also donate cash or cheques in person at the Stourbridge News offices, at St John’s House, St John’s Road, Stourbridge.

Cheques need to be made payable to Project Gambia Trust Ridgewood, and you’ll need to write Well Of Life Appeal on the back.

Pupils from Ridgewood will be travelling to Sintet as part of Project Gambia on Monday March 23, and a second group from the school will fly to Africa on Friday March 27.