By Eleanor Milburn | Special Programs Manager
Salifou, one of the teachers from our MindLeaps Guinea program, recently travelled to Mauritania, West Africa. Here, he worked side-by-side with our international team to deliver our dance program to youth in the capital city of Nouakchott. Like our Guinean students, youth in Mauritania struggle to have the psychosocial support necessary to regularly attend school while handling the day-to-day challenges of street life.
Created in partnership with the local NGO SOS Pairs Educateurs, the program provided three months of dance classes to 125 youth plus training in MindLeaps curriculum to several local teachers. You can see a short video with Salifou in Mauritania here: https://youtu.be/gek6qzuV7HA.
After three months, the students came together for a performance and demonstration for the local community on May 19, 2017. The students went through a variety of the exercises and choreography they had learned and spoke about their experiences in the MindLeaps program.
We had many students grow and succeed over the course of their time in the program. One particular girl, Fatimata, grew in every skill area over the three months and took the stage with confidence. See a video of Fatimata during the final performance here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-V4FHwDN7k
Our Guinea program will also welcome a new volunteer this summer. Kimberly Kamara has a Masters in Public Health from Mt. Sinai Graduate School and is the Program Director at The END Fund, an initiative to combat the five most common neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) that, together, cause up to 90% of the NTD burden in sub-Saharan Africa. Kimberly will be evaluating the intake procedures and other public health resources provided by MindLeaps programs in Kindia and Conakry.
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