ABOUT US

We are a group of volunteers based in Findhorn Foundation community, Scotland.

As a world-renowned ecovillage, spiritual community and learning centre, we hold many inspiring international conferences and events.

Through New Story Summit (2014) and GEN+20 conference (2015), our Senegalese friend, Ousmane Pame shared his passion to build more classrooms in rural area of northern Senegal, where the education is mostly needed to create a better future, or in some cases to make your basic needs met.

Yasko Takahashi

email: moreschools4africa@gmail.com

The schools in Senegal are now closed for two months and will reopen in October. School openings are always painful experiences for thousands parents and kids in rural areas in Senegal. Because of lack of schools and/or classrooms deficits, thousands of kids are deprived of their right to have school education.

Some years ago, a young girl named Aissata (who lived about ten meters from the school) was facing this sad situation. Every morning and afternoon, she would go to school to only stand by the window and watch her friends learn to read and write. During breaks, she would stay, play and run in the school yard like all other kids. She was very bright, eager to learn like her friends.

Noticing the young girl’s regular presence at the window of his class, the teacher allowed her in and got in touch with the school administration and her parents. He also helped her parents through the administrative procedure to get her a birth certificate, a document required for school admission. (Many kids throughout the country have no birth certificate and are not allowed to get into the educational system). While still at primary school, as is usually the custom in the region, her parents wanted her to get married. Again her teacher was there to support her. He called some Women’s organizations in Dakar, who in their turn informed the district police and finally prevented the marriage. She carried on her studies, did well at school, got her A-levels and is now at the university.

For the past 16 years, I’ve been personally helping to build classrooms, bringing school materials. More than 30 villages in Podor (a region in the North of Senegal) have benefited from this type of support. I was able to do it - thanks to the support of friends in Nice (France) who are retired, and run a small charity organization called Soutenir l’enseignement en Afrique (SEA). This is how they raise the funds: they’re given items like furniture, clothes, books etc, sell them and send the money to support the schools in North Senegal. Now they are ageing and cannot continue such activity.

Thanks to their help in the past ten years, villages like Lahel, Mboya and Guede have been able to send their kids to school. Lahel village is located by River Senegal, by the border with Mauritania. No one in this village had ever had a chance to go to school. When someone received a letter, they had to walk 3 or more miles to find someone who could read. The villagers were so happy and grateful when we offered to build them a school.

While the constructions were taking place, I wrote to the Educational authorities (some of them are my university colleagues or former class mates at the School of Education) to send teachers, which was accepted and done. Now the school is so successful that kids from neighboring Mauritania come and attend the school. The young Mauritanians stay with host families to be able to attend school and they go home at weekends.

The work I’m doing now to support schools in rural Senegal comes from the shock of seeing my former classmate who was the most brilliant kid in our entire school expelled because his father could not give a contribution of cfa 200 (a small amount which is not enough to buy a cup of tea anywhere). I saw my friend lead a miserable life; he died of tuberculosis and had not been able to offer anything to his kids. One day I found him, sitting by the side of one his kids, who was suffering from severe malaria. The kid had a very high fever and could hardly move but my friend could not afford to take the child to the village dispensary as he had no money to pay for the consultation let alone the price of medicine. I found him there using a fan with the hope the kid’s fever would go down…

The unfair treatment he faced at school followed him all his life and unjustly affected his own children. My friend’s case is unfortunately no exception. Many kids in many villages in rural Sénégal are kept out of the educational system and left without a promising future. My aim in supporting the schools is to stop this injustice toward vulnerable children and families.

THE STORY BEHIND - Ousmane Pame