1. Greetings from The Gambia. How is everyone at Ecclesall Infant School? And how is the weather with you? The weather here is getting warmer as summer approaches. It has not rained since November now and every where is very dry and dusty. We are waiting for the first rains but they do not come yet. The mangos are growing strong on the trees but they are not ready to eat yet. May be in July.

2. There is even a brand new 20 dalasi note and we are told there is going to be a 200 dalasi note. A dalasi is worth about 2 pence. We are very excited because our Government have just issued new bank notes. Our old ones were looking very old and tired. The new ones have a photo of our President on

3. We have been learning about The Gambian population and the population of earth. We want to share with you what we found out. It is estimated that in 2015 there were 7.2 billion human beings on planet earth. That is 7,200,000,000. If you counted them at one a second it would take 288 years to count them all.

4. That is a lot of mouths to feed and a lot of human pooh to get rid of everyday. And the population of human beings is growing fast and may be as high as 11 billion in 2050 It is because in the developed countries like Europe and America people are living longer. But also in the developing countries in places like Africa the population is growing fast too. So let us tell you a bit about the Gambian population

5. In 2013 there was a census in The Gambia and the Census officers visited each compound and they number each one and found out about the people who live there. They have just finished counting. The found out that The Gambia now has a population of 1,882,450 people. It has grown from only 315,486 in 1963. So Gambia is a small country but is growing fast. It is estimated that by 2030 it will have doubled to 3.6 million people.

6. That means if you imagine that the Gambia is a village of 100 people then 39 would be children aged 14 or less and 58 would be adults aged 15 to 64 years and only 3 would be old people. Have a look at the chart on the following slide. It shows the age profile of people in The Gambia. That is because like most African countries the population here is very young. 39 per cent of the people here are aged under 15 and 58 per cent are aged 15 years to 64 years of age. That means only 3 per cent are aged 65 years or more.

7. This chart shows the age profile of The Gambia. Can you see how many young people there are and how few old people. That is why our population is growing. Many young adult women have babies.

8. So in The Gambia there are now 64,000 births each year but only 16,000 deaths. People are starting to live longer here too. But because we are a developing country and do not have so many clinics and hospitals many people still die before old age. The average life expectancy here is only 64 years. 62 years for men and 66 years for women. People still die of diseases like malaria

9. Well we hope you enjoyed finding out about The Gambia. We wonder how our population compares with yours. How many people live in England? With 1.8 million people The Gambia is 149 th in terms of size. Where does the UK rank? And do you know which is the biggest country? For now we say Good bye and we look forward to hearing from you soon.