Post-Ebola Guinea: Educate & Empower The Youth

In April 2018, MindLeaps Guinea received a donation of 50 Sanitation Kits from the local chapter of Leo Club Dame de Loura of Lions Club International of Guinea. This donation gave each student their own sanitation kit, which is a personal box that includes a towel, flip flops, toothbrush, jogging pants, water bottle, nail clippers, shower gel, as well as sanitary napkins for female students. These items are an essential part of the sanitation program provided at the MindLeaps Center in Guinea.  The kits are provided alongside lessons teaching students important health and sanitation practices. Many thanks to the Lions Club for this generous donation and support of our students!

MindLeaps Guinea is part of an exciting collaboration taking place this summer. Ten of the best trainers from MindLeaps programs in Rwanda, Kenya, Uganda, and Guinea convened in Kigali, Rwanda, on June 10th. For the next three months, they will study, train and live together in an immersive cultural experience mixing different nationalities, languages, religions, and talents. These trainers will learn MindLeaps curricula and pedagogy to become better equipped to bring the MindLeaps program to their own communities when they return to their home countries.   The dancers come from Kenya, Uganda, Guinea, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Rwanda.  Salifou Camara and Morlaye Bangoura will be representing MindLeaps Guinea.

Salifou, one of these trainers, was a student at MindLeaps before it was even called “MindLeaps”. Back in 2011, Salifou joined dance classes in the town of Kindia. Salifou was like many teenagers in the area who attended school irregularly and floated between extremely poor living conditions at home and on the streets. Fascinated with dance and acrobatics, Salifou joined the dance program at the community center. A talented and hard-working student, Salifou went from being a student to being promoted as a teaching assistant in 2014.  In 2016, he was trained to become a full teacher. Since then, he has been teaching in MindLeaps Guinea’s programs in Kindia and Conakry. In 2017, he joined MindLeaps international team traveling to Rwanda, Uganda, and Mauritania with MindLeaps and establishing new MindLeaps partnership programs. He is now excited to be a part of the team again in Rwanda this summer.

Also right now in NYC, five dancers are being trained to become MindLeaps dance teachers. MindLeaps programs are growing across the world and we are developing new teachers to staff our programs. These five dancers from the US and Canada have spent an intensive two weeks learning the MindLeaps curriculum and pedagogy. In addition, they met their future teammates – the ten African trainers, including Salifou – through a Skype session on Wednesday, June 13^th. (Photo within.)

Thank you for your continued support that has helped our students and teachers in Guinea gain skills, jobs, and bright futures!

Our program in Conakry launched in summer 2017 and is continuing to serve 50 youth through our ongoing curriculum of dance classes and English classes along with a daily meal program. The students have been enrolled in MindLeaps program for over six months and have shown great increases in their skills measured by MindLeaps M&E system, Tracker (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izNw35-PS_4).

To showcase their progress as well as push their confidence to even higher levels, MindLeaps initiates performance opportunities for our students so they can demonstrate what they have learned and become comfortable dancing and speaking to a public audience. Last week, MindLeaps students were invited to perform at an international festival at L’Ecole Americaine in Conakry. The students performed dance choreography (as well as some exciting acrobatics!) to a large audience. You can see photos of the performance below and a video online here: https://vimeo.com/260092920 

In addition, the staff of MindLeaps Guinea have also had the opportunity to grow their skills through being an integral part of MindLeaps’ expansion across the continent of Africa. Two of our leading dance instructors from our program in Guinea have flown to Kampala, Uganda, to build out MindLeaps' expansion in East Africa. MindLeaps is working with local Uganda NGO Rockies Organization through our “Train The Trainers” program. Salifou Camara and Ibrahima Camara of MindLeaps Guinea, along with International Coordinator Eugene Dushime and International Teacher Ssali Eugene, are training the top youth in the Rockies Organization to become teachers of MindLeaps’ dance curriculum. These teachers are now working with Uganda NGOs Save Street Children Uganda, Refuge & Hope, and M-LISADA to teach our curriculum to their vulnerable youth beneficiaries.