You may well come on to McCarthy Island via the bridge from the south road. As you continue towards the town of Janjanbureh you may notice a large fenced garden beside the road. Depending on what time of day women may be scattered among the rectangular plots — preparing soil, planting, watering or gathering produce.

Or perhaps the work has finished and you encounter women leaving with produce that will help feed their families, with surplus going to market. They may be holding it piled high on their head and a baby strapped to their back. This is GAMSPAD Community Garden and very much a part of everyday life in Janjanbureh, as throughout the country. In your time in JJB your could see this in two other areas, Wassalung Community Gardens and Dasilameh in Dumas area.

But one of the town’s substantial community gardens is somewhere a passing visitor is unlikely to see.

Behind the compound walls is an extensive cultivated area: long rectangular beds, women working, watering, tomatoes supported on locally made frames, okra growing and being harvested, the river immediately beyond.

This is Solwin and takes its name from Sulyman Faal, know to all as Sol and his German wife Winnie — three letters from each name.

I first met him on my very first short educational visit in 2004. Then, there was a small kiosk in the main road selling hand crafted goods. I purchased a small decorated calabash purse from him, not knowing that this was Sol and his clever crafting: As the years passed I realised he was a man of many talents and would freely give of his time and knowledge for the benefit of the community.

Evidence of Sol's such skills can be seen throughout the island. Many of the signboards are his work, including the long established historical interpretation boards outside significant buildings and at the Freedom Tree site, displaying the words of Janjanbureh historian, the late Hon. Foday Jibani Manka, but the sign writing skills of Sol.

When I later began establishing Just Act Gambia with Foday Manka, then National Assembly Member for Janjanbureh, Sol was there again. As we began the early training of local guides, he willingly shared his deep experience of the birds of the area and he continues to be renowned for his knowledge of the rich bird life on the island where river and tidal waters meet.

But let us return to another passion of Sol’s and lies behind the walls of Solwin.

For several years Sol worked voluntarily with a Spanish-supported initiative helping to develop many community gardens in villages across Central River Region. Besides teaching agricultural knowledge, improving soils and stock, the work included improving access to water through wells and, in some places, boreholes. The participants thus improved their livelihoods, providing food for their families and raising income either in daily markets or weekly ‘lumos’.

When this outside project ended, Sol’s involvement in community gardening did not. In the mid 2010’s he gave over a large area of his own compound for a community garden for the local women of the area. It stretched right to the river bank. I saw it in its infancy with the neatly prepared rectangular plots and I would see the women eagerly going morning and evening, around their already busy day, to water and maintain their varied crops. At that time they hauled up water in buckets from the river. Being tidal this could vary hugely and was labour intensive.

Years later, those rectangular beds are still being cultivated. Sol says around 15 people are currently using the garden and expects more to become involved. The laborious business of fetching water from the tidal river with buckets has been eased by the pump he has installed.

The gardens are called Daragi, a wolof word for school, because here both teaching and learning is ongoing. As Sol explains, there are many ways of gardening, and we all learn from each other and share our knowledge.

Sol's support for local food growing also reaches beyond Daragi. At Janjanbureh hospital he has encouraged the doctor in charge to develop growing beds within the hospital grounds, with fresh food for patients in mind.

Most tellingly, after 20 years of knowledge of Sol he is still quietly finding ways to use what he has and what he knows to support the community around him. As he says

“Really I like the job … and to help my communities.”