It is our last weekend in Dakar. We had our last lecture at UCAD yesterday and while it felt nice to be done, it also feels bittersweet because it will be hard to say goodbye to the connections we
just made:
(Our amazing and hilarious Wolof teacher at our last lesson)
(My brilliant research team members with our counterpart)
(Our accommodating trip coordinators)
(Our patient, intimidating, and awesome bus driver, Pops)
Throughout this trip, our team has been searching for alternatives to state run education, which is part of the reason we visited organizations and programs like
E'cole de la Rue,
Africulturban and Ecopole. I haven't written about Ecopole, but they are an organization funded by an NGO. One of things Ecopole does is it teaches youth how to make art out of recyclable materials. The youth are provided with the supplies and training from artists at the Ecopole headquarters (an old fabric factory). The profit from the art they sell is given to their families.
Here is a visual tour of Ecopole, which ranks as another favorite visit:
(Joy and I took a picture with most of the artists who made the pieces we purchased.)
While these programs have been uplifting and inspiring to me because of the passion and commitment of the people running them, we have found that there really
isn't an alternative to state run education and that has led to some frustrations and many revelations. While these programs help kids get more involved in school and provide them with opportunities for income, the poor are still extremely poor, while the rich are still (surprise, surprise) extremely rich.
In all of our trekking around the city, we haven't found a program or organization that challenges the youth to think critically about current class structures. The programs work with students to get them
into the French colonized public education system instead of creating something new. I've found the United States to be quite similar (minus the French colonized public education system part of it). It is
crazy to me that the United States and Senegal have so many things in common when it comes to public education. I never thought I would be able to compare a school and curriculum in a third world country to our country.
Instead of ripping every program apart bit by bit and criticizing the way they address the problems in education, I've come to a conclusion and I will give it to you in the summary of a meeting we had the other day. We met with a guy from outside of Senegal who we were told ran an organization for street kids (50% of the population is under age twenty and there are many children begging on the street). That's all we knew. When we started interviewing him, we found out his program is funded through the World Bank. Man oh man, as soon as he said he worked for the World Bank the sirens started going off in my head
(BEEP BEEP BEEP EVIL BANK MAN) and I automatically wanted to quiz him on why the World Bank creates programs for street kids when their past and present actions are a main reason why there
are so many street kids. I put on my game face. But what I found from this man when I attempted to dig is that he has lived here for two years and he still doesn't understand the way everything works and he is working to learn. He stated that not everything is always black or white, good or bad. Maybe he was trying to cover himself, but I truly felt what he was trying to say. It's a life's work. And we were attempting to figure it all out in one month.
It's just not that easy. Trying to create alternatives for what is so ingrained in a system takes years. Sigh. I guess I'm fully committed to it now, huh? As the Senegalese say, "Why not? It is no problem."
Who's with me? Let's start a revolution...
Peace,
Jen
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