Post-Ebola Guinea: Educate & Empower The Youth

In summer 2017, our first permanent center was established in the capital city of Guinea, Conakry. This Center will enable us to provide our dance and English classes in the same safe space for several years to come. This year’s program has launched and is now serving 44 youth, who are mostly from Community Solidarity, a struggling neighborhood within Conakry. Our top teachers from our Kindia program, dance teacher Salifou Camara and English teacher Mr. Doumboya, have joined a team of eight more Guineans to lead this program in Conakry.  The students are being provided with several hours per week of dance classes and English lessons, as well as a daily meal program.

Shortly after the opening, we welcomed field volunteer and current medical student Julia Sawatzky. Julia assisted International Development Specialist Kimberly Kamara in testing MindLeaps’ intake questionnaire - developed to capture the circumstances and stories of kids who come into the MindLeaps program - for appropriateness in a Guinean context, After several weeks of interviews, research and analysis, the tool had been changed, developed and tested for use with community children and future MindLeaps students.

MindLeaps Guinea's Country Director, Ansoumane Conde, with the help of Kimberly and Julia, have been analyzing factors contributing to childhood vulnerability and school success in Guinea. In addition to interviews and surveys, Ansou has also been meeting with local government officials and departments to further this research.

Julia wrote a compelling series of essays on her time in Guinea, which you can view on the MindLeaps blog. Reflecting on her time at MindLeaps she wrote, “Throughout this, when learning more and more about the kids and where they have come from, the question that sometimes comes to mind is, “Why Dance?” Why, when these kids need so many of the basics – food, clothing, shelter, support – is giving them the opportunity to learn through dance the right and the best thing to do? Well, I can confirm from this week of experiences that all it takes is one MindLeaps dance class to answer this question in full; and this is one reason I’m really glad that we are conducting the intake questionnaires with the program ongoing.  Taking absolutely every chance I can get to watch the kids move or – better yet – dance beside them, I am able to see how the seven cognitive and non-cognitive skills woven into the MindLeaps curriculum can be markedly and visibly improved even in a single class, giving these kids attributes and attitudes that will last much longer than a single meal. When learning how to follow through in a dance class to work past the hard warm up and get into the fun combinations, the kids are developing – before my very eyes ­– determination and focus that I can so easily imagine being translated into other parts of life and meaningful future endeavors.”

Links:

• MindLeaps Blog