Schooled by High Schoolers

Tiny projects impacting a small community of people may seem like a pebble dropped in a river, compared to massive aid efforts conducted by international organizations. But sometimes the ripple effects of those little projects can stretch farther than you ever expect! 10 Senegalese high school students showed me that.

Just last weekend, we finally wrapped up Kolda’s first ever “Leaders of the Future” Youth Internship Program, which provided 10 local high schoolers (5 girls and 5 boys) with summer internships at different organizations and non-profits in town. 

Me (bottom right) with the interns and Peace Corps Volunteers

The project was a lot of work to organize! Thankfully, I was able to recruit 6 other Peace Corps Volunteers to help manage the interns. And it was all completely worth it now that we’ve seen how much it impacted these youth, who had never been exposed to the “professional world” before.

I say “youth” and not “kids” because the students we selected ranged in age from 17 to 21! Sadly, many youth in Senegal don't graduate from high school until a much older age than the ideal, for a variety of reasons. Girls may drop in and out of school depending on whether they get married young or have a child. Youth living in poverty may take time off to support their family or help out at home. 

On top of that, the French school system here in Senegal is tough. Americans have it easy in comparison! The system here requires students to pass two major cumulative exams at the end of middle school (the BFM) and high school (the Baccalaureate / “Bac”), in order to receive their diplomas. Thought the SAT was hard? It’s got nothing on the Bac. And no university here will accept a student without it, nor will most decent jobs hire someone without it. 

The result is often a frustrating cycle for students who are held back year after year as they try to pass the exams. My own host sister, Aissatou, is 23 and still hasn’t received her high school diploma yet, though she studies hard every year trying to pass the Bac. Some say the system is rigged, since “there isn’t enough space at the universities anyway.” I don’t know the truth, but I do know it’s rough out there for Senegalese youth.

I could go on for pages about the problems with the school system here, but I digress. Instead I’ll swing the focus back around to the awesome group of people I had the privilege to work with. 

Getting the Community on Board

Our community partner at Alpha Molo Baldé High School, Vice Principal Idrissa Diédhiou, really made this project possible. From the first day when I plunked myself down in his office to propose the idea, he was on board. He already works harder than any school official I’ve ever met: in addition to his work as VP, he’s also a Student-Teacher Advisor, a part time English teacher, and PhD student in Literature. A man of many hats.

The high school

Vice Principal Diédhiou giving a motivational talk to the interns

Diédhiou really believes in providing opportunities beyond the classroom for his students, so he appreciated the internship concept right away – even though it’s kind of a foreign idea for Senegalese high schools. As soon as I explained the idea to Diédhiou he spread the word to students, and ultimately helped me filter through the 50+ applications we received. We then interviewed the 20 finalists and chose the 10 winners. 

Based on their goals and interests, we matched each student with the organization that best fit. The participating organizations included 6 development/aid organizations, a pharmacy, a hotel, an environmental protection agency, and a local radio station. It took a lot of biking all over town to explain the project and convince these organizations to accept an intern in the first place, but by the end of the program they all seemed glad they did. One supervisor even showed up unexpectedly at the Closing Ceremony, just because he was so proud of his intern.

Intern (Mamadou) making his final presentation with his supervisor present.

Mini Professionals

As for the interns themselves, they really exceeded everyone’s expectations. We already knew they were some of the school’s smartest and most motivated students. But it wasn’t until the end of the program, when they made their final presentations, that I realized just how much knowledge they’d acquired. They had become mini experts in their chosen fields, in just 5 weeks! Compared to where they started from – many of them had little or no computer skills, no knowledge of the work NGOs do in Kolda, and no professional work experience – it was pretty impressive. 

One intern, Diénaba Dabo, even teared up a little as she explained what the program meant to her. She had interned for an NGO called 7a. “I learned so much thanks to this program,” she told us. “7a really became my family. I had no idea about the work they were doing here in Kolda, but now I understand their programs, and I asked them if they could come start a project in my community.”

As a result of her internship, Diénaba actually conducted house-to-house visits herself to gauge the need and interest of her neighbors, based on what she had learned at 7a about community development. She was ultimately able to establish a women’s economic group in her community and link them up with support from 7a. 

How amazing is that? It’s not often in Peace Corps that you get to witness a project with an immediate tangible impact, changing someone’s life and rippling out to impact her community.

The other interns also gave pretty powerful presentations. They were able to articulately describe their organizations and the type of work they do, as well as answer pretty intense questions from their peers. By the end of the day, we’d had discussions about everything from Family Planning (i.e. birth control) to child malnutrition, the health risks of female circumcision, women in the service industry, the separation of religion and work, what makes a good journalist, enforcement of environmental regulations, the benefits of loans v. grants to communities, and agricultural techniques. 

I felt like a proud mama listening to them debate! Except I really can’t claim any credit. They sure schooled us.

Check out our 10 interns and their stories:

Diénaba Dabo

Grade 12

Intern organization: 7a, an NGO conducting local projects in community development, health, and food security.

Diénaba, age 20, is our most curious and enthusiastic intern – never afraid to ask questions or give her opinion. She lives with her parents, 5 brothers, and 4 sisters in Kolda and speaks Pulaar, Wolof, French, Mandinka, and a little Spanish and English. After high school, she plans to continue her studies at university and become a magistrate or an engineer, though she is also discovering an interest in community development projects. “I always had the ambition to help the people in my community, to contribute to their success,” she says. 7a loved her and invited her to extend her internship for two additional weeks.

Demba Balde

Grade 11

Intern organization: Eaux et Forêts, an environment protection agency.

Demba Balde, 21, is our smooth-talker, quite capable of making the ladies laugh. He speaks French, Wolof, Pulaar, and little English. After high school he hopes to attend university in Canada and study geography. He is interested in development, agriculture, and the environment – a perfect match for Eaux et Forêts. The organization “took me in like I was one of their own,” he says – even if they did chase him down to shave his head military-style!

Malick Diallo Biaye

Grade 11

Intern organization: Radio Nafoore, a local news and entertainment station.

Malick, age 19, is the spunky one of the group. He was born in Tankanto Escale Village and now lives in the city of Kolda with his parents, 2 sisters, and 4 brothers. He speaks 5 languages (French, English, Wolof, Mandinka, Pulaar). Before his internship with Radio Nafoore, Malick wasn’t sure whether he wanted to go into teaching, journalism or commerce some day. After working at the radio station, he says he’s decided that he wants to pursue journalism. 

Aissatou Diallo

Grade 10

Intern organization: Tostan, an NGO working in child and maternal health, community development, and child protection.

Aissatou may be only 17, but you’d never know it: she’s calm, mature, sweet and reliable. She speaks French, Wolof and Pulaar. Since she told us she was interested in health and the sciences, we paired her with Tostan, an NGO active in many health projects. The projects that interested her the most were those combatting female circumcision and early marriage, and it’s clear she has a passion for women’s health. Tostan has become her “second family,” she says. This program was the first time she learned how to use a computer.  

Mamadou Baldé 

Grade 11

Intern organization: ADC/Ninnaba, an NGO working in community development, agriculture, and environmental projects.

The oldest of the interns, Mamadou is 21 and the head of his household in his father’s absence, taking care of his mother, 3 sisters, and 3 brothers. He speaks French, Wolof, Pulaar, and a little English, and he is very interested in agriculture and the environment. “I really want a professional training in agronomy,” he told us when he applied for the internship. “I am responsible for my family, and I want to succeed in life and help my mother.” Mamadou says he has now learned environmental strategies that he can apply at home. His supervisor appreciated his work and has invited him to come back for future seminars and trainings. 

Amadou Bassirou Bâ 

Grade 11

Internship organization: FODDE, an NGO working in community development, health, food security, and the environment.

Amadou is 19 and lives with his mother, 2 sisters, and 3 brothers in Kolda. He is interested in health and development and he speaks French, Wolof, and Pulaar. We placed him with FODDE to give him some experience in community health projects. “I want to learn to express myself publicly and work well with others,” Amadou told us at the beginning, and it’s true: he’s the shyest of the group. But by the end he had come out of his shell a little.  

Fatou Ba 

Grade 10

Internship organization: Agence Regionale de Développement (ARD), a big agency targeting many different aspects of regional development.

Fatou is 17 and best buds with Aissatou. She is one of the best computer users and speaks Pulaar, Wolof, and French. Since she was a child she has wanted to be an engineer for NASA, she tells us. During her internship, she was given a thick manual on the agency to learn – and she aced it. She has been invited to extend her internship for a few additional weeks.

Abdourahmane Diamanka 

Grade 10

Internship organization: Koldoise Pharmacy.

Abdourahamane speaks 4 languages (French, Wolof, Pulaar, and a bit of Spanish), is very interested in health, and is a member of the science club. He wants to go to university in Dakar to study medicine and would like to work in medical research. “I want to be able to help people with their needs, especially in the health sector,” he says. “Health [is] a problem in Senegal, particularly in the rural communities that lack hospitals and personnel. That’s the reason why I’m interested in health. I want to become a doctor and achieve my dream, which is to construct a hospital.” He did so well working at the pharmacy that his supervisor showed up at the Closing Ceremony to show his support.

Hawa Diamanka 

Grade 10

Internship organization: Hotel Hobbé. 

Hawa is a courageous girl, not afraid to defend herself and stand up for women. It’s not easy in Senegal to work in the service industry, but she tackled it with a big smile. Hawa speaks four languages (French, Pulaar, Wolof, and English), is interested in health and accounting, and enjoys her sciences classes. “During summer vacation I’m [normally] here in Kolda doing nothing, and I want[ed] something constructive to do, to gain knowledge,” she says. She performed so well as jack-of-all-trades (server / receptionist / cook) at Hotel Hobbé that the manager even left her in charge of the entire hotel occasionally!

Fanta Baldé 

Grade10

Internship organization: Child Fund, a nonprofit organization working in health and community development.

Fanta is 20 years old and married already – but that hasn’t stopped her from continuing her studies! Fanta was born and raised most of her life in Dakar, though she lives in Kolda now with her husband. She speaks Wolof, French, and a little Pulaar. Her areas of interest include health, accounting, and the sciences. “I wanted to do this internship because I’m thinking of the future, of tomorrow’s success,” she says. Every week that I met with her during the internship, she spouted off enthusiastically about something new she had learned about: Family Planning, child vaccinations, the dangers of post-partum hemorrhage, baby weighing and malnutrition screening. 

Tips for any volunteers looking to replicate this project in Senegal:

1.  PCV project leader should have a professional level of French, in order to create documents and interact with the organizations.

2.  Constant follow-ups with participating organizations are vital. If you don’t remind them, they will forget. Drop off the letter of invitation (which they will lose), and then follow up a million times: to assess interest, to get them to fill out the paperwork, to inform them once their intern is assigned, and then again before the internship starts. Some of them will try to cancel with you at the last minute. Il faut insister, quoi!!!

3.  Add a line item in the budget for phone credit! I killed my credit during this project making so many phone calls to interns and organizations.

4.  It seems like 6-8 week internships would be more ideal than 5 weeks. The students really do value the experience more than the money they’re receiving (we gave them a small stipend at the end), and they all said they would like to continue. Many of them have extended their internships and are now just working for free.

5.  Orientation day and computer lessons before the internship starts are essential! Many students in Senegal somehow still make it through high school without learning how to use a computer (not sure how, since most city schools have computer labs now). The computer lessons were something I decided to add to the program, and I’m really glad I did.

6.  It’s a great idea to invite a motivational speaker to talk to the students at the Orientation Day before the program starts. We chose the lovely Mama Awa Traore to talk to the kids about making smart choices, and they loved her.

7.  Teach them how to make their own CV/resume – they loved this, and it gives them a tangible proof that their new computer skills are useful.

8.  Divide up the interns among several PCVs – each volunteer should have charge of 1-3 interns. Volunteers should with their interns each weekend to check in. Have them fill out work logs.

9.  Inform the students ahead of time that they will be giving a final presentation after the internship ends; help them figure out what they will say. Give some tips on public speaking (Senegalese youth tend to speak pretty softly when put on the spot…)

10.  Encourage interns to stay in touch with their supervisors and to ask about future job openings, letters of recommendation, “attestations,” etc.

11.  We did not have room in the budget to invite the interns’ parents and supervisors to the Closing Ceremony, but it turns out everyone would have preferred that they be included.

12.  Make it fun! Play music at the ceremonies, make jokes with the interns, show you can relate to them as a young professional yourself. (They’re really not that far off from our own age!)

Me and Aissatou

Mamadou making his final presentation

Aissatou at her Tostan office

Orientation Day 

Computer lessons!

Awa Traore giving an inspirational talk to the interns during Orientation Day

The Faces of Change

Apologies for my long absence from this blog! I’ve been working my tail off here in Senegal with some big new projects (will explain soon), as well as gallivanting around Spain and Morocco (also to be explained soon). For now, though, I want to sincerely thank everyone who contributed to the Michele Sylvester Scholarship (MSS) Program that I fundraised for and blogged about a few months back!

I am happy to inform you that with your help, I raised all the money needed to offer scholarships to 9 girls from my neighborhood middle school, CM Sikilo Ouest. The school administration nominated these girls for their academic record, motivation and financial need, with teachers submitting a recommendation for each student. Each of the girls wrote me an essay about their future plans and their thoughts on the role of women in Senegalese society (you should see some of the things these smartypants wrote!). Finally, I conducted a personal interview with each candidate. 

Two of the girls I already knew, since they had attended our Youth Empowerment Camp back in March. The others proved to be just as smart and motivated – and sweet or spunky (depending on the girl). I approved each recommendation and sent their complete applications on to SeneGAD, our Peace Corps gender and development group handling the final approvals and scholarship distributions. If all goes well, the girls will be receiving their scholarships at the start of the new school year this October.

Thanks to all my lovely donors, these awesome young ladies can now afford another year of education without putting a strain on their families’ resources. Girls dropping out of school to work at home or get married remains a huge problem in Senegal (and Kolda in particular), so every little bit of motivation helps! Many of them come from big families with only one parent present or working – usually the father, with the mother fulfilling the traditional housewife role. Some are facing other difficulties as well. In addition to their studies, each of these girls also helps with household tasks every day (cleaning, sweeping, laundry, cooking, washing dishes). Still, they’ve all managed to stay on top of things and have some of the best grades in their class.

Here are the faces / stories of the girls your donations helped support!

Tacko Ndiaye

1.  Tacko Ndiaye
Age 13, Class 6ième (6th Grade)

Though she was shy at first, once I got Tacko talking it was obvious she’s a very bright, ambitious girl with a sense of humor. She is interested in a variety of subjects at school, not just one thing – she likes science, history, reading, languages, you name it. When I asked her about her future goals, she said she wanted to be “President of Senegal” or work in foreign policy! It’s great that she believes she can aim high no matter the circumstances. I am positive that she’ll go far. Her essay made it clear she already is a strong advocate for girl’s education and women’s rights, and she even has ideas for national policy changes. In addition, Tacko’s parents are divorced and currently her mother is the only one supporting her financially, since her father’s contract ended and he’s out of work. She lives with her parents and two brothers. When I asked what she contributes to the family, she responded, “L’amour!” (Love!) 

Mariama Baldé

2.  Mariama Baldé 
Age 12, Class 5ième (7th Grade)

The youngest of the scholarship recipients, Mariama is facing very difficult circumstances in life, but she’s extremely hardworking. She tells me she can see herself in the future either as a doctor with her own clinic or as a French teacher. Regardless, she wants to achieve success in life and help her mother out – a very selfless goal, considering her mother left her and lives in Guinea Bissau with a new husband, sending no money back to support Mariama at all. With her father dead, Mariama’s only source of support is her uncle – she lives with him and his (very big) family. I actually know and work with her uncle, Thierno Diamanka, a very respected and caring Marabout, and I know this scholarship will help them out.

Maimouna Gano

3.  Maïmouna Gano
Age 14, Class 5ième (7th Grade)

Maïmouna has two dreams, both of which involve helping women and the underprivileged: she wants to become either a gynecologist (to help reduce maternal mortality rates, she says), or a lawyer supporting human rights. She is very adamantly against early marriage, and her parents agree with her on this, thankfully! Maïmouna lives with her parents and 6 brothers and sisters. Her family seems to be having money problems, since her mother is a housewife and doesn’t work, and her father was a taxi driver, but his car has broken down.

Saoudiatou Akapo

4.  Saoudiatou Akapo
Age 14, Class 5ième (7th Grade)

Saoudiatou was one of the 4 students selected from this school to attend our Kolda Youth Empowerment Camp this past March, so I knew her already when we did the scholarship interview. She seems shy at first but is actually quite the opposite – little Miss Socialite! She is very intelligent (she has the highest grades of all the MSS girls), with opinions on women’s rights and education fostered and supported by her father, whom I also know. He is a radio journalist and a single parent supporting 7 children. This is obviously a pretty difficult situation, but he seems like a great dad. Saoudiatou loves science and wants to become either an ophthalmologist or engineer some day.

Marie Thérèse Diédhiou

5.  Marie Thérèse Diédhiou
Age 13, Class 5ième (7th Grade)

Marie Thérèse is a motivated student who has both achieved good grades and participated in extracurricular activities. She’s a strong believer in talking to people in her community about keeping girls in school. Later in life she wants to become a doctor. She lives with her parents and 4 siblings. Her family’s money situation seems a little tight, since her father is retired military living off a pension. Her mother doesn’t work – only her older sister is currently earning money for the family as a teacher in Velingara (another city a few hours away from Kolda). Her sister’s success has been an inspiration for her to work hard in school.

Rayhanatou Diallo

6. Rayhanatou Diallo
Age 16, Class 4ième (8th Grade)

Rayhanatou seems like a hard-working girl. She wants to become a policewoman or a doctor (gynecologist). She believes that women should not be delegated so many household tasks in Senegalese society and should have more time to pursue academic interests. Like many of my MSS girls, her mother is a housewife and does not earn money for the family. Her father operates a boutique (small shop) to support his family of 10 (his wife and 9 kids, including Rayhanatou).

Aissatou Diallo

7.  Aissatou Diallo
Age 14, Class 4ième (8th Grade)

Aissatou suffers from a vision problem that requires special glasses unavailable in Senegal, though her family is currently trying to obtain them from the US. This makes studying a little difficult for her, but nonetheless she is ambitious and hardworking. She wants to become either an engineer or a sage femme (midwife / gynecologist) some day. She is against early marriage and plans to complete her schooling and get a job to help support her father, who is the sole breadwinner in the family (mother is a housewife).

Bayelaou Diallo

8.  Bayelaou Diallo
Age 15, Class 4ième (8th Grade)

Bayelaou is an extremely sweet, respectful girl, quick to smile. I know her from her participation in our Youth Empowerment Camp. She was great in camp – very engaged and dynamic. She learns quickly. She tells me she wants to become a doctor / gynecologist some day, but she realized this is a difficult field and she’s a little nervous about succeeding. (I know she will, though.) In her family, her dad works at a boutique, but her mother doesn’t work, which means money is occasionally tight for her and her 9 brothers and sisters. Bayelaou is passionate about achieving success and helping other women in Kolda, and she has some great ideas for how to help women climb out of poverty.

Mbadé Amy Ndour

9.  Mbadé Amy Ndour
Age 13, Class 6ième (6th Grade)

Mbadé Amy was difficult to track down – she seems like a very busy girl (lots of studying and other activities)! Her family is definitely having some financial problems, and she told me that sometimes when they can’t afford rent, they have to leave their house and stay with relatives. Her father is the only one working in the family, as a carpenter. Regardless of these difficulties, Mbadé Amy works hard in school and hopes to become a sage femme or lawyer some day.

Empowering Youth: Change Starts Here

Take a look at this photo taken during our Bagdaji Youth Empowerment Camp last week. What do you see?

Besides some crazy expressions (including mine)... what I see is a sea of smiles. Really, look carefully: not a single kid in this photo looks bored or irritated, like we’d expect from at least some kids in a group of teenagers. Instead, I see laughter, intelligence, mischievous glints in dark eyes, and pride at being selected for the camp.

This was the second youth camp I’ve participated in during my Peace Corps service - the first one was an English Camp in Dakar (not an overnight camp). This one was even more fun.

What does Youth Empowerment Camp look like in Senegal? A little bit of everything! We mixed art and sports and fun with important life lessons, exposing the kids to things they’d never yet had a chance to experience. Tie dye, dodge ball, tag, intro to karate and self defense, theatre skits, discussions on health issues and gender equality, a career panel and life planning sessions, art, a game teaching money management, movie/popcorn night, spontaneous dancing to Beyoncé, and more.

Karate session

Nutrition activity

Musical chairs (with human chairs!)

Tie-dyed shirts

In general, the camp aimed to equip these kids with the knowledge to live healthy lives, express themselves, and pursue their dreams. 12 girls and 12 boys, the best and brightest of middle schools throughout the Kolda region of Senegal, were invited to the four-day camp. Some were from the city, some from small towns, some from villages. Over half of these students had no electricity at home. It was a big mixing of worlds.

Happily, all 24 showed up, enthusiastic but unsure what to expect. There aren’t many camps for youth in Senegal, so many people here don’t actually know what a “camp” is. (And I’ll tell you, it’s pretty amusing trying to explain the concept in Pulaar…)

Once we got to know them, it was clear that these were really some of the most awesome kids we’d ever meet. They were extremely smart. Most spoke at least two languages (Pulaar and French), and some spoke three or four (Wolof, English). Throughout the four days of camp, they participated eagerly in every activity. They soaked up the knowledge that we and our Senegalese partners showered on them, asking questions and taking notes. One kid - a tall 16-year-old always dressed like he just stepped out of a men’s magazine - couldn’t be torn away from his notebook. It was funny, but great at the same time: apparently you can take notes and still be fly.

In fact, a lot of these kids dressed pretty fancy. With the heat in the upper 90s (Fahrenheit), it’s normal here to bathe 2 or even 3 times a day - but some of these little fashionistas actually changed clothes each time, revealing 2 or 3 new outfits in one day! Considering they all arrived with one small little backpack or sack while we volunteers lugged large duffels, we still don’t understand it. Magic bags??

Bringing the Camp to Life

For an event of this size, you need a lot of help. (Just to give you an idea, this project took about 6 months to organize and required a decent sized grant!) Two Peace Corps Volunteers (PCVs), Alexia Kime and Sophie Danner, were the camp leaders in logistics and planning - but the camp was really the collaborative effort of many. A local NGO, Ofad Nafoore, hosted us during the camp. Senegalese partners (nurses, teachers, local professionals) were also invited to help out with various activities. About 13 PCVs participated in the camp, each of us taking on different sessions.

I helped organize the art session, teaching the kids how to make animal dot paintings loosely based on the concept of Aboriginal dot painting. (Thank my trip to Australia for the idea… yes, Aus is still on the brain.) But the kids loved it, and while some chose to copy our samples, others took plenty of creative liberty. Check out my little artists:

I also helped out with the session on First Aid, along with a few other PCVs and a local health worker who brought her medical kit to show the kids. We taught them what to do for heat exhaustion, burns, cuts and other injuries, and choking. The Heimlich maneuver was probably the biggest hit of that session. One group of kids even surprised us (and cracked us up) by including it in their theatre skit later:

Heimlich during their theatre skit

First Aid session

In addition, two community health workers came to talk to the kids about sexual and reproductive health - everything from puberty to STIs and HIV. We split into two groups, girls and boys, so they’d feel more comfortable to have a discussion. Many of them already knew a lot, but some didn’t. The girls asked a lot of questions, including: can you play sports while it’s your time of month? What can you do about the pain (cramps)? Happily, all of the girls agreed that their monthly cycle shouldn’t prevent girls from going to school. Traditional views used to keep many girls home for an entire week each month, but thankfully that’s not often the case any more.

Reproductive health talk

One of the best sessions during the camp was a discussion led by Peace Corps employee Mama Awa Traore, our beautiful, regal Senegalese guru. This woman is amazing - you can tell just by looking at her in photos. She knows how to command an audience to rapt attention - and how to get us laughing.

Mama Awa Traore

This time Awa talked about sexual equality with the kids, asking questions to see what they already knew about topics like early marriage and school dropouts, gender roles, and other sensitive subjects. She handled every topic bluntly, but gracefully. She assured them that it’s normal to have boyfriends and girlfriends at that age, but they have to be smart about the choices they make.

“They say that girls in Kolda are beautiful, but easy,” she said to the kids. “Why?”

Responses on why early pregnancies were so common in Kolda centered on the reality of poverty. Lack of money means girls might jump at the chance to have a man give them money or clothes, or the girl’s own mother might even prostitute her daughter for money (this is rare but does happen, sadly - one of the girls in the camp had seen it herself). Teachers have been known to get their own students pregnant. It’s a vicious cycle.

Awa wanted the kids to know that there is a way to break that cycle, and that is through respecting yourself, having life goals, and pursuing an education. “Do you know your own mind? Do you know who you are? Do you know what you want?” she asked them. “You have to know and respect yourself. Only education can get you out of poverty. It’s not the 1,000 or 2,000 francs someone gives you, it’s not the clothes someone gives you.”

She also encouraged the kids to expand their horizons on roles for men and women. “A woman can fly a plane, a woman can be an electrician, can build a house,” she told them. Anything is possible.

One of the other most inspiring sessions of the camp was the Career Panel. We had invited several Senegalese professionals in various careers to come and speak a little to the students and answer questions, discussing their own experiences and how to achieve success in life. Speakers included two nurses (female), a community organizer for Child Fund (female), an information technician (male), a social relations manager for a construction company (female), an agronomic engineer from World Vision (male), and two teachers (male/female).

Career Panelists' Advice / Experiences:

“Be proud of what you are.”

—Sali Baldé, Ofad Nafoore

“If you wake up in the morning and you have no destination, will you end up somewhere? He who manages his time well is he who succeeds.” 

—Luc Manga, World Vision

“Accepting that you’re a student means accepting that you have a teacher, even if you don’t like him.” 

—Mamadou Diao, Information Technician

“All my girlfriends were married at a young age, but happily my father refused. He encouraged me to study.” 

—Aissatou Diallo, community organizer for Child Fund's maternal and child health program

“There’s one teacher I will never forget. He would even come visit me at home, and if he’d find me in the middle of cooking dinner, he’d say, ‘No, this girl shouldn’t be cooking, she has to study.’” 

—Mama Camara, nurse

Interviews conducted by students during Career Panel

Career panel

Following the career panel, we had another session on future planning to encourage the kids to follow their dreams and set concrete goals to get there (e.g. finish high school and pass the Baccalaureate, get a scholarship, go to university or trade school, do internships, etc.). We also had the kids draw what they envisioned as their future (dreams/goals/interests). ...And yes, I drew one too!

My self-portrait (travel, journalism, writing/photography)

Among the kids we had a range of career interests, from doctors to teachers, journalists (woohoo), and three future Presidents of Senegal (two girls and one boy)! Mamadiang Diallo made sure we knew that when he became President, his ministry would contain large numbers of Diallos and other important family groups (last name jokes are a big thing here).

Mariama Diallo wants to become an eye doctor / ophthalmologist. 

By the end of the camp, the kids were all thick as thieves and had all exchanged phone numbers, just like any summer camp in the States! At our closing ceremony with the kids and their parents, we learned that many of their parents hadn’t actually finished school themselves, and they regretted it the rest of their lives. They told us they were extremely proud of their children for doing so well in school and being selected for this camp.

“Everything we are doing here is to support you, but the most important thing is to say, ‘We can do it,’ and push until you do it,” our PC Volunteer Support Assistant Tidiane Diao told the parents and students in the audience. “To be educated is to know how to better handle things, how to better take care of your life, how to better help people to achieve their goals.”

Of course, education comes in all forms - not just what you learn at a desk in school. We’re hoping this camp gave these kids some of the tools they need to succeed both in the classroom and beyond. Also, if one of these kids ever becomes President of Senegal… we got the hook up!

Tidiane Diao giving his speech

Making tie-dye shirts

Camp housing

Gender equality: boys can serve the food too!!

 

Me with my group of kids from the city of Kolda

Me (camp photographer!) and my PCV friend Tasha (camp dance queen!)