A Gambian-Dutch charity has bagged the prestigious African Foundation Award of the Voice Magazine – the biggest and first African news magazine published in the Netherlands.

4Gambia Foundation, which is involved with different projects in The Gambia, is the first charity registered in the country to win the prestigious award which will be conferred on October 21, 2016 in the Netherlands.

Speaking to What’s On-Gambia, the founder and chairman of 4Gambia Foundation, Géke Lagerburg-Schutte, said: “We are very honoured to receive the African Foundation Award and want to thank my whole team for their hard work.”

Géke started visiting The Gambia in 2012 on the invitation of his late brother’s Gambian widow and her life ‘changed forever’.

“What I saw with my own eyes was shocking,” she said. “I knew it only from watching TV. But now it was real. I smelled poverty. Lovely smiling kids wearing dirty clothes couldn’t go to school. It felt so unfair. Since then it came in my heart to help.”

4Gambia Foundation, which has a Gambian as national coordinator, supports both schools and families in disadvantaged parts of the country.