Education for All in Kaolack, Senegal

The Diapalante Community Education Centre in Kaolack, Senegal is open to the whole community. It helps people looking for work, looking for better-paid work and many people simply trying to keep their jobs as the demands for literacy and admin skills becomes more commonplace. Children come for help when they are struggling to progress at school.

The Centre is very different to a school. Classes are smaller and much more interactive. In most lessons, English and IT skills for example, children and adults learn together. This mix of backgrounds, experience and age groups with the classes brings a vitality and freshness to the lessons. Other classes are age specific eg primary school French (schooling is in French) or address a particular group eg literacy for talibés (Senegal’s street children). Sometimes one to one teaching is best eg if the need for a specialist computer skill or vocabulary set is the issue.

Learners often contribute to the Centre by giving their time, teaching others, doing the cleaning or helping with the Centres’ chair hire business. Very few have the resources to contribute financially to the Centre’s modest overheads. The Centre’s ability to continue, today and in the future, depends on your contributions and we are very grateful for them.

For this newsletter we asked three of the in-school teenagers to explain why they come to the Diapalante Community Education Centre when they are already in full time schooling. None of them mentioned the common problems in school: lack of text-books, teaching in a language that is not their mother tongue, the poor educational background of many teachers, the strikes by school staff, the large size of the classes, the absences of teachers … things which are just part of their everyday life.

“Hello. My name is Betty. I started coming to the Centre this year and I really like it here. I come here to do English, IT and sometimes maths lessons. They help us to communicate in this language and these skills definitely help us at school and will help later when we look for a job. The Centre also allows us to share, help each other and have more freedom compared to school. I haven’t participated in the Young Leaders project yet, but I would really like to in the future if I have more time.”

“My name is Fallou. I am a member of Diapalante. The Centre means a lot to me, it is a place where we can be really comfortable, and we have a lot of freedom. Before, I was really shy. I was sometimes afraid of expressing myself in public, but now that’s no longer the case and it is thanks to Tonton Alassane’s lessons [performance art] and the Young Leaders activities, where I am a leader for the seven to nine year olds. Last year my English teacher congratulated me on the level of effort that I was putting into learning English, and I was really proud of myself and the Centre. I am praying for everyone who contributes to the Centre in any way.”

“My name is Cheikh. I have been coming to the Centre since 2018 as part of the Young Leaders programme. In 2019, I began taking part in the Centre’s other activities and helping as a supervisor. Unlike school, the Centre gives us a much greater opportunity to develop our IT skills and also gives us access to the library. Here we do activities with people of all different ages and professions. Now I always have good grades in school and that is thanks to our beloved Centre. We play, we learn, we help each other and we get to know everyone. Thank you”.

These Senegalese teenagers are just one group of the many children and adults who benefit from your donations to The Diapalante Community Education Centre. Thank you for the opportunities that your support brings.