Creating a Sustainable Future
Equip. Educate. Cultivate. Harvest. Repeat.
About us
Cultivating the Wealth of the Gambia
Gambian people have a sincere, diligent nature & a strong commitment to communal traditions. It is this spirit that gave birth to Sustainable Gambia: a partnership of local leaders with an international network of professionals, joined in commitment to the cause of sustainable development.
Sustainable Gambia aims to support the Gambian people in becoming self-sufficient & strong. Sustainable Gambia helps Gambians to develop practical skills to enable small businesses, especially agriculture. This model not only lifts communities above the poverty line and reduces dependency, but also improves their potential for long term growth, economic sovereignty and social cohesion.
Given that good health is necessary for self-sufficiency & independence, Sustainable Gambia is also exploring strategies to provide access to high quality healthcare in underserved areas of the Gambia.
Mission & Vision
Sustainable Gambia aims to break the cycle of poverty by training local African communities to carry on their self-sustenance independently of charity, after an initial seed investment.
We sow the seeds for an African continent where local communities are economically independent, resilient, and self-sustainable. We believe in leveraging the African natural, cultural, and human resources in African countries to enable socioeconomic advancement.
Values
Sustainable: Independent socioeconomic development is our bottom line.
Green: Not only do we protect the environment, but also vice versa!
Service: Male and Female community leaders are the ones who guide our plans and approach.
Love: Human development is the core. Local culture are traditions are honoured. Africa’s tremendous potential is unquestioned.
Executive Director
Mohamed Serageldin
After studying Mechanical Engineering at Boston University, Mohamed switched paths in 2009. He ventured to Egypt, where his family is originally from, to focus on studying Arabic, the Sacred sciences and memorizing the Quran in its variant recitations.
Mohamed is currently the executive director of Sustainable Gambia and CEO of Kairo Clinic. He oversees instruction in the sciences of the Qur’an for teachers of the boarding schools in the Gambia, which currently serve students from the Gambia and Guinea Bissau. He is also the co-founder of BasmalaBeads.
Having started a family in the Gambia, Mohamed now divides his time between Cairo and Banjul with his wife and four children.
Board of Directors
Hagieh Kunta Kinteh
Named after his ancestor, the historical Kunta Kinteh, Hagieh Kinteh was born and raised in The Gambia where he is a respectable community figure who is sought by locals for personal and social advice.
Hagieh Kinteh owns the Kunta Kinteh guest house which serves as a meeting point between locals and foreigners. Not only that, his work experience in Germany, makes him the perfect link to the local community and culture.
Hagieh Kinteh gave a compartment of his guest house to be used as a clinic for medical missions providing free healthcare for the locals.
Lamine Yaffa
As a passionate, ambitious young man, Lamine moved to California to study Sales and Marketing at Los Angeles City College. A family man at heart, he returned to The Gambia where he currently lives with his wife and four children.
Lamine kicked off his career managing the distribution networks for Total Gambia, a subsidiary of the French giant Total International. He is currently the Head of Sales and Distribution at the mobile network operator Qcell in Gambia and Sierra Leone.
Mehdi Ziyat
A native Moroccan, Mehdi fell in love with philanthropic work that builds economic sustainability within the African continent.
Throughout his successful 20-year career in strategy management and consulting, Mehdi grew to appreciate the strong education he received as a telecommunication engineer in France and Montreal. This journey inspired him to fund several student sponsorship initiatives and water management projects. He is currently a founding and board member of Si Mohamed Ziyat Foundation that offers subsidized accommodation services for needy female students in Morocco.
Mehdi and his wife Hasnaa, who live in Dubai with their three children, teamed up to originate the concept of Sustainable Gambia. They both funded the seed investment for digging a water well for the farm; as well as the construction of the workshop and guest house amenities.
Hasnaa Kebouri
Hasnaa’s twenty-year journey in management consulting and strategy project management, combined with her masters degree in finance, inspired Hasnaa to use her expertise in helping others. A Moroccan mother of three, she stands for breaking the cycle of poverty.
After a few humanitarian initiatives in Jordan, Morocco, and Egypt, she came to the conclusion that sustainable development is the long-term solution for local populations to break the cycle of poverty. Therefore came the idea of “Sustainable Gambia”.
Faisal Ghias
Faisal received his Master’s Degree from the University of Chicago’s School of Social Service Administration. There he pursued his interest in nonprofit management, philanthropy, and strategic planning.
Living in Northbrook, IL (USA) with his wife and two children, Faisal realised that spirituality can creatively address the issues facing contemporary society. He then became one of the founding directors of the Oasis Initiative. He helped launch the Zawiyah program, a holistic spiritual and educational retreat that brings together leading scholars, thought leaders and students from around the world to discuss relevant issues facing the community.
Faisal has recently led a medical mission in The Gambia, providing free healthcare for the local population.
Key People
Tony Milroy
Tony’s upbringing in British and Scottish farms, together with his graduate studies in the field of environment and agriculture, shaped Tony Milroy’s work in the past four decades.
Tony pioneered in numerous environmental development programmes with low-income groups; among which is the ‘Urban Oasis Programme. His consultancy work in recent years has focused on initiatives, like the Paradise Garden and ‘Tropicallotment’ programmes, that bring together diverse, disadvantaged group around common interest activities that combine food growing, cooking activities, and English language acquisition.
In his efforts to document this grass-roots work, he developed programmes that enabled hundreds of thousands of trees to be grown by children & community groups; such the international award-winning ‘Learning by Growing’, a self-help programme that demonstrates environmental solutions for disadvantaged, inner-cities. His TV documentary series on arid-zone, traditional husbandry, The Hanging Gardens of Arabia, was distributed in over forty countries.
Reem Fatthelbab
Reem grew up in Cairo and studied Media and Journalism in Denmark. She currently writes and presents multimedia content for international media outlets like the BBC Arabic, National Geographic for youths, and AJ+.
Reem was an organising committee member in Resala, a major Egyptian charity organisation, an experience where she learned that traditional charity is not a sustainable solution. She then led an initiative in an underdeveloped area in Cairo to empower women, especially female heads of household, by providing microfinance programmes and educating their children.