Dakar Youth... Sharing...

This photo I took last week of homeless children in Dakar. There were to be 34 of them sleeping in that tiny space that night. It was late evening and we only stayed a few minutes but what I understood was that this tiny non profit in Thairoye Dakar is a partner non-profit for Citizens of the Streets - Citoyen Des Rues - Senegal. A Paris based NGO that seeks to provide assistance to street youth around the world.

This is El Hadj Beye and he is the president of the Senegal chapter and gave us a tour of Thairoye and the work they are engaged in. I also went to a meeting at city hall where El Hadj was awarded $500 by the Ministry of education and youth for his his NGO. Conducted in Wolof and French, with prayers by the tribal village headman it was quite an experience. The average wage in this economically challenged area I was told was $1 a day - below poverty line. I also accompanied El Hadj and the director of CAFT (below) for a meeting with the USAID education director for West Africa to talk about project funding.
 

I took this photo two days ago of Mamadou Diallo, the director and founder of CAFT - a school for children in Thairoye Senegal. It has been active since 1992 and is considered a community school which is certified by the Ministry of Education yet set up like a private school where each parent pays according to their means. Many are on scholarship, some pay nothing.

Since its founding Mamadou says he has personally gone to homes and knocked on doors to ask parents why there children were not in school and brought some 500 new students to CAFT this way. El Hadj Beye was one of his former students. Here is the CAFT website in French.

I was there to experience firsthand a training by an international non profit Play For Peace. The goal was to help create mentors and facilitators with CAFT teachers and older youth in the school. Mamadou had invited several other NGOs in Dakar to be part of this training as well so that it would have a much more far reaching effect in Senegal.

Elisabeth from Quebec Canada (she speaks French), and Agyat from India were trainers. Play For Peace is not a funding organization and was in Dakar to share their methodology that is now active in some 20 countries in communities of conflict. A skype session to Guatemala with an active Play For Peace center there, and knowledge exchange with Agyat and Elisabeth were part of the curriculum as was a heavy amount of game playing.

Together the two trainers have nearly two decades of training experience working with communities in the slums of India to the gang-slammed streets of Guatemala.

Every minute there was filled. Amazing for both the cultural experience and the warmth of the people as it was for the crash course in international aid work, local politics and being at ground zero where it all comes together.

My life in 10 days has been forever changed. I look forward to sharing these stories. My Kickstarter I am using to cover costs for this project is 89% funded. Thank you to everyone.