Senegal / Dakar: Project of free English language courses for the poorest children of Parcelles Assainies Slums
Senegal is a coastal West Africa nation located 14 degrees north of the equator and 14 degrees west of the prime meridian. The country’s total area is 196190km2 of which 192000km2 is land and 4190km2 is water. Dakar is the capital city over 1 million people live in Dakar making it Senegal’s largest city. Today Dakar is a sprawling, lively cosmopolitan city.
The statistics of education 2014 UNICEF report shows that a total 49.7 Percent of adults are educated and 78.9 percent of children at primary school are being enrolled.
Despite progress over the years, Senegal’s education system faces significant issues and challenges; these include regional disparities in school enrollment and completion, low levels of learning achievement, outdated curricula and pedagogical methods, and poor learning condition.
Base on these arguments and the fact that education is very valuable in the life of a children, we decided together with my volunteers team to start a free English language course for the youths of Parcelles assainies slum in Dakar as English language is today key for good education and a strong tool which open many doors for children future education.
With the precious help of PETER BACHMANN FOUNDATION, we have started this project since October this year, 30 children are being registered , 19 girls and 11 boys, with a group of 3 volunteers teacher, we strictly follow the children pedagogy, learning them the English language through songs, games , reading and writing. We are satisfied with the children behavior as they are very receptive to the training even though we steel lack some necessary materials to run the course easier.
The classes are 3 times a week (Tuesday, Thursday and Friday) from 3 PM to 5.30PM, on Saturday we usually organize group activities to give opportunity to children to learn in a more informal environment, singing, playing, and drawing some cartoons together.
Our target students are children between 6 to 10 years, boys and girls from very poor homes, we know from experience that learning a language to one kid give chances to other kids to have benefit of the knowledge as the students beneficiaries can easily teach his or her siblings, friends, neighbors the language at home by singing or practicing what they have learned during classes, this makes our project very fruitful as we will touch a large audience while investing our effort in a specific population.
Statistics of the student being enroll for this session
Age 6 to 8 years: 7 Boys, 12 Girls
Age 8 to 10 years: 4 Boys, 7 Girls
The course duration will be 6 months per session,this session will be from October 2015 to March 2016 renewable as long as we can receive support to continue our project. Even though it is our first experience organizing such wonderful project for kids, we can feel direct impact already and we always shall be grateful to PBF and we hope to receive more support to make this ideas happens with more impact in the life of this children here in Dakar.