Kickstarter Has Launched!!!

Wow! Within just a few hours of going live I already already have backers for my Kickstarter campaign... I am honored.

I am leaving Friday morning for Dakar, Senegal. I have never been to Africa. I am both excited and nervous.

My goal: Shoot thousands of images - candid and portraits. Get lots of audio interviews, write feverishly and document the process of trying to create a better life for youths that face intense adversity in Dakar.

I need all the support I can get! You can help back my project by going here to Kickstarter.

Below is from the campaign...

Documenting the struggle and resilience of Dakar youth

Describe what happens when two NGOs and youth of Dakar come together and through play try to create a better life from great adversity.

This November I am traveling to Dakar, Senegal to document youth in and around this city of two million as they participate in a program designed to quickly improve their lives. Statistics from The World Bank and UNICEF show that only about half of Senegal's 12 million citizens are literate. Over half live in poverty. I will be working with two NGOs (non-governmental organizations), whose mission is to help empower youth.
Why Now?
Dakar is offering an ideal platform to visually and verbally describe a combined effort between an international and local NGO - They believe that the program they seek to create will have great potential to positively effect the lives of children in Dakar.
A center will be established for youth and the goal is to co-create a program designed to serve and empower under-served youth of Dakar by playing cooperative games and by training locals to be mentors and instructors of these games.
How will I share this?
My involvement will be to document and create a visual and written portfolio. Through photos and recorded interviews I plan to share the stories of the local children. I will also document the unfolding of the process of creating this center aimed at empowering youth.
To do this I will need your support. I have to cover travel and in country costs and then spend weeks assembling all of the material upon my return. Donors will be an essential part of the process and I will be sending updates while in Dakar - and while the process continues when I am back in Colorado. I will be providing photos and downloads of the series and process to those that help make this project a reality.
Why me?
For over a decade I worked as an outdoor educator, experiential educator and a guide and believe in the efficacy and necessity of the shared process and mentoring for building trust and confidence to better the lives of youth. My experience however, was largely with children from California, from private schools and privileged backgrounds. I am curious to see firsthand and to document how an international NGO can co-create with a local one to provide a platform for sustained positive change within a very challenged city in the developing world.
My big questions I hope to answer are: Can play be used a kind of international language and create a better life for these children? And if so, what exactly is this magic recipe for empowering under-served youth in challenged communities?
You can see more of my photography and published feature work at my website bennettbarthelemy.blogspot.com
Below (and the lead picture) are a series of images from Andes in South America that are part of an ongoing project describing the challenges indigenous cultures have to face while embracing tourism and climate change. The images are currently under curation at Tandem Stills and Motion.

Risks and challenges 

There will be language challenges (French, Wolof, Arabic and a number of tribal languages are spoken) and cultural differences - but spending time and building a rapport and trust of the community will help to overcome obstacles.