The Port of Harlem Gambian Education Partnership (POHGEP) is more than half way at reaching its goal of replacing the 11 ageing panels on slavery at the Juffureh Slavery Museum, a UNESCO site, in Juffureh, The Gambia.

A new 17 panel permanent exhibit, “The Trans-Atlantic Human Trade and The Gambia’s Overflowing Significance” till take its place.  The new exhibit will be more inclusive and diverse than the current one.

Using the their past donation, “From These Shores,” as a springboard, the new exhibit will further decolonize the historic center by using more local languages and scripts including Mandinka with N'ko script, Pular with ADLaM script, and Wolof in Ajami script.

Other languages incorporated in to the presentation include Jola, Serer, Balanta, Manjaku, Aku (Krio), Soninke, and French. “When Senegambians (Senegalese and Gambians combined as one nationality) visit, they will see their language and themselves included.  It should be a source of affirmation and self-worth. Others will learn, by seeing, the diversity of Senegambia through the various languages developed, spoken, and written in the region,” added Wayne Young, President of POHGEP.

One of the translators for the exhibit Abdoulaye J Barry, and his brother Ibrahima invented ADLaM, the script used to write Pular. Abdoulaye also teaches online “Conversational Pular, ADLaM Alphabet and the Fulani Culture” via Portland (Oregon) Community College. Pula is often called Fula.

The new exhibit will feature art by Anne Bouie, Carla Chissell, Willie C. Cordy, Jr., Dorian Jay Durrah, Olfus Hampton, Jr., Olay Jabbi, and Prelli Anthony Williams.

For the "From These Shore" exhibit, POHGEP is adding two new panels: 1) Gourds and Calabashes and 2) The Balafon.  Both instruments were born in Senegambia and are used in North, Central, and South America. The added display will feature the art of Thembi Douglas.

POHGEP connects Americans and others with the world’s future, Africa, but also fills a void, as implied by a question that a Gambian friend once posed to Young in 2001: Why don’t I see any African-American Peace Corps workers or other African-Americans working to develop The Gambia? Young’s response: Your children will never be able to say that.

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Major Exhibition Donors, Creators, Consultants, and Artists (English)

Weeb ito Mawngo, okkoobhe, Sincoobhe, Antubhe e Naalankoobhe (Pular)

Gold ($1,000)
- Omar Ceesay and Jennaba Badgi (Peace Corp Moniker) - Maryland, USA
- Maggie Louise Hearon Young (posthumously) – Indiana, USA

Ivory ($500)
- Anonymous – Maryland, USA

Beeswax ($250)
- Isabelle Williams-Brown - Washington, DC
- Ivan Brown - Washington, DC
- Ebrima Cham - Kani Kunda, The Gambia
- Bernadette Champion - Maryland, USA
- Dr. Keith W. Crawford – Washington, DC USA
- Virginia A. Farquharson – New Jersey, USA
- My Gambia -  Kerr Serign, The Gambia
- Ronald Lewis - Washington, D.C.
- Michael Ricks – Idaho, USA
- Kathleen Trent – Texas, USA

We named the three donation levels after the commodities that Gambians traded with Europeans, aside from humans.