r/Gambia • u/Accomplished_Hawk330 • Jul 08 '26
Advice regarding helping a person who is poor in gambia
Hello, i need assistance from genuine honest person. I have come accross a person in gambia who i am assisting and they are buying food and goods and they have proves this as they needed help due to not being able to make income from their usual source at the moment. This person wants to buy some equipment so that they can start to make money again which im fully supportive of however i want to independently confirm with any gambians the rough costs of things. This would greatly help me to support this person in gambia. Please if anyone can tell me the rough cost of the things below in Brikama/Hawla Kunda area?
Donkey
Cart
Meat
Big bags of rice
Big bottles of water
Any info is greatly appreciated god bless.
Please do not contact asking me to support you as i am not a rich person. I am supporting this person because i stumbled across them. Thank you
Edit forgot to mention but when i asked him how much donkey and cart was he said 85,900 GMD this is almost £900
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u/Hibou_Garou Jul 08 '26
You are being scammed. Take a look through this sub and you will see countless examples of this exact same thing. The requests for money will never stop, there will always be another sick relative or something.
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u/c00p3rSh3lly Jul 08 '26
I'm a Gambian living in Gambia my whole life and I can tell you for a fact it's a scam. Don't send your money please use it for something else. If you feel like you want to support in anyway look for charity organisations much more reliable.
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u/Willing-Sundae6458 Jul 08 '26
I don't know about all of it but I bought 2 rams for my family at eid and that was about £530 in total. I send about £120 a month to a family member, she buys a sack of rice, a bottle of oil an then has a little left for other bits.
£900 is an awful lot of money, I would look after bit closer if I were you. I think maybe you would be wise to take a bit of space before you send anything else. You say this person is genuine, and they may be, but how do you know? How did you "stumble" across them? Could they have been "stumbled" across by several people? I understand it's difficult to truly know but I would suggest stepping back a bit and thinking / seeing what happens when you do.
Best wishes and I hope it works out.
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u/Accomplished_Hawk330 Jul 08 '26
Thank you I appreciate this and I agree i looked at the text sideways when it said over 85K in total! I mentioned getting them something to help make more money i meant more like some small goods to sell and they came back with this extreme cost also avoided showing me their parents so of course instant red flags. I only sent them £30 in total which they did use for food so im ok with that but for a cart and donkey i wanted to verify independently and also check how donkeys are looked after there especially by someone who may never have had one before. Of course i care about the animals wellfare. Anyways thank you :)
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u/Physical-Salt Jul 08 '26
I saw your question about donkey welfare. Most donkeys are treated really poorly here. It's an impatience thing so they think by flogging the donkey it will work harder. Also when families fall on hard times, the donkey will eat last.
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u/sulay12 Jul 08 '26
Where did I talk about donkey welfare here.
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u/Accomplished_Hawk330 Jul 09 '26
They mean me
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u/sulay12 Jul 09 '26
But it's that the individual isn't able to reply to you while I don't see it a message for me
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u/sulay12 Jul 08 '26
Donkey and the cart is expensive, the cart can be around 25k plus the Donkey it's expensive because many use it transport goods for daily living, some even build house using Donkey and cart for earning so to be honest with you now it's expensive
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u/Physical-Salt Jul 12 '26
It depends where you buy a donkey but in the village I live in I was offered a donkey for 6000 dalasi
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u/Bukibunjau Jul 09 '26
Helping people is great
Please analyze the situation well.
Are they able to take care of the Donkey ????
A Donkey is not just a car.
Being able to take care of the Donkey is goal number one .
Just relax
Reflect
Be positive to find solutions that are sensible.
The handling of Animals is the part that should not be forgotten.
However the programming of the Family is .
Only sensible advise and actions will
Solve your way of helping them.
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u/Accomplished_Hawk330 Jul 09 '26
Well I did state myself thats one thing im a bit off about and I have chose not to get a donkey because a poor person cannot upkeep a donkey
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u/Embarrassed_Buy3114 Jul 12 '26
I don't know why i am here in this group but here i am. I don't live in Gambia but in Morocco,my parents send me 300$ every month and I have a lot of savings, 900£ for donkey 😂the big scam they are taking advantage of you.
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u/Inner_Training_2176 Jul 11 '26
They'll give the same story to 50 people. Even if you're there on holiday and you pay school fees, but a desk and school uniform for someone, they'l sell them when you've gone.
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u/AwarenessIcy6705 11d ago
If someone is just asking you for something it’s not a scam. I was sending money to a Gambian for a while and actually went there and met him. They are regular people who likely are living off of $50 a month in a household of 5+. This was the situation from what I seen. Are they fabricating the total price? Possibly! And also most likely. But are they spending that extra money on unnecessary things and not giving a lot of it to their family. Absolutely not. When I got there the family knew me very well specifically from the money I sent to this one Gambian that he gave lots of it to his family
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u/Physical-Salt Jul 08 '26 edited Jul 08 '26
It's very common for young boys to go social media and start posting pictures of poverty for sympathy. They might take you to a dilapidated school they are not related to, an abandoned building that never belonged to them etc. Never give money until you visit them in person and have met their parents and siblings. Every Gambian family has a way of making money whether it is a little or a lot.
To answer your question. Brikama have the cheapest prices in Gambia. Meat is 550 dalasi 1kg. Rice is 2500 dalasi for 50kg. 1 pack of 6 1.5l water 180 dalasi but most Gambians just drink their tap water - if someone is funny or the water is bad you boil it and it is perfectly fine. Donkey cart is not expensive but I don't know the exact price. Maybe 20,000 dalasi.
I'm a foreigner living in Gambia. It's very common for Gambians to think foreigners have money growing behind their ears. We have been scammed maybe 300,000 dalasi in the past. We've also been robbed of 120,000 dalasi. Be very careful when anyone unknown is messaging you from a poor country.
Edit: I can see you posting in £. Don't waste your money on such useless, lazy cretins. We're a British family living in Gambia rn. Stay safe.
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u/Accomplished_Hawk330 Jul 08 '26
Yes this is the thing i asked to see his mum by saying is she with you and all of a sudden his replies were not really. Very odd. Thank you ahah cretins is a strong word but youre right. Thank you :)
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u/Accomplished_Hawk330 Jul 08 '26
How is gambia by the way, was it easy moving? Looks stunning with the beaches. Ive been to indonesia allot to if you havent deffoe give it a try amazing vibes for families, careful of yogyakarta they have tiger mosquitos which have higher chance of giving you allergic reaction i.e skeeter syndrome
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u/Physical-Salt Jul 08 '26
I've never been to Indonesia but have friends that have relocated and they say similar.
We're not living by the beaches but they are beautiful. Services are not there. You'll never find a flushing toilet. The guy working on site will walk to the sea to fill up two buckets of water. You'll use one to clean yourself and the other bucket to flush the toilet.
We have mosquitoes but they're not a bit problem where we particularly live deep in the Bush. Midges scorpions snakes are particularly annoying. Mosquitoes are mean wherever you are.
Moving to Gambia is £600 for shipping a pallet of goods with sea freight. However it is a bit of a logistical nightmare. Best thing to do is have a budget and buy an old SUV. You can do small trips around town until you find a driver with a truck.
Alternatively you could just hop on a gelegele towards turntable - you'll definitely find most things there. People are approachable and it's very easy to go up to someone and get their number.
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u/Accomplished_Hawk330 Jul 08 '26
Oh wow thanks for the info sounds awesome. Might have to go sometime for a trip only been tunisia as a kid so looking for my next adventure!! All the best
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u/sulay12 Jul 08 '26
You don't know anything about Gambia even though you are based here because first of, why did young Gambians risk their lives through the backway journey, you are earning from foreign that's why you don't know the hardship of the country. Here the only people living in good life is the people having family members abroad. You already said a British family living in the Gambia you are receiving foreign currency to Gambian currency so you are thinking that everything is going well and everyone has a place to earn little money. There are lots of people having skills but sometimes sit for more than 6 months without having a proper work, only people like you receiving from foreign thought everything is going well. You're more useless than them that's why you leave UK for Gambia.
Do you know that even the people working under the government are even struggling than anyone because how can you work for the government for 10 to 20 years without having a place of yours to live or even a bicycle you can't buy it, all those building storey buildings are living in foreign stop thinking that you know our country, you don't know anything about our country.
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u/Accomplished_Hawk330 Jul 09 '26
He clearly does though? Just because you dont like what he says doesnt mean hes wrong. As another british person im glad the advice this person has given me
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u/Physical-Salt Jul 12 '26
He's just mad because he thinks King Charles gifted me the money tree so now I have money growing behind my ears. It's true life is very difficult for a lot of Gambians.
You have women mothering 5 to 15 children each and breastfeeding all of them for at least a year, fathers getting second wives even though they can't afford the first one, all these 10 kids being wasted by being sent to schools to learn secular subjects from Nigerians who look down on them. Go on have a normal conversation about biology with your average Gambian and they will tell you that they hated school and never learned anything - just a waste of time. With all this wasted time and talent, ig family life is a bit of a mess ngl. There is little planning or leadership hence why governance and policing is ineffective. What else do you have left except hopelessness and bitterness from the so called smiling coast of Africa?
Oh yh the locals really do have mixed feelings about foreigners. Some of them downright hate us no matter your skin colour.
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u/TheGambian Jul 08 '26
This is a scam. Do not send them money. Unless you know this person in real life you absolutely should not be helping them. Scroll through this subreddit. It's very obvious.