National Bereaved Parents Day 2022

Fiona's story

Our aim was to build new memories, in our son’s name, for his son.

We set out to raise funds to build a classroom in memory of our son Jason in Gambia and to take his son there in years to come. The picture is of our grandson’s first visit when he was 9. We didn’t do one classroom, we managed to do 2 classroom blocks (4 classrooms in all) enabling approximately 250 children a day to have a better environment in which to learn in (we completed these in 2005). In subsequent years we did a vast amount of project works in partnership with Kiaro Konko (KK) a scout fellowship in Soma and the surrounding area.

Our project manager Lamin Kinteh MBE once wrote in our memory book, “Jason, I’ve only known you since you died, I wish I’d known you before”. We succeeded in his name to make a difference; 17 years on Lamin still oversees our projects all of which have helped individuals, families and the community of Soma. Finding and making this partnership with KK was part of our healing journey. It is still there to this day - on 10th of May 2021 our grandson facetimed Lamin as we gathered by Jason’s grave to celebrate his 50th Birthday.

Jason’s mum, Fiona