ICTRE-PHE’s influence reaches as far as Senegal

It started with a brick. A bright red, lego knock-off brick. Although small, the bricks garnered attention from all the passers-by at CERN’s main building. But each brick symbolized a lot more than a nostalgic toy- they were the building blocks for an actual wall around a primary school in N’Diago, Senegal.

With the goal of providing development aid for the instructors and school-age students in the remote village, the Association Ensemble Pour N’Diago, a young non-profit organization headquartered in Geneva and founded on the 12th of February in 2011, has made great strides to meet the pedagogical needs of the students. Chantal Fournier and Laurence Greggio, both former CERN kindergarten instructors, head the association. Their aim is to raise enough funds to build a wall around the school grounds, stocking a library, and supporting the school cafeteria needs.

The village lies 200km from Senegal’s capital and largest city Dakar There are 5 hundred inhabitants in the village, the most important in an area where there are 12 other. The children of these other villages go to school in N’Diago, usually carrying their supplies in plastic bags. So when Iulia Pascu, a fellow of the Life Sciences section at CERN approached them with an offer, they were ecstatic.

VARIAN, a proud sponsor of the ICTR-PHE 2012, handed out over 800 messenger-style bags to conference participants. As with most conferences, there were a substantial number of bags left after the closing session. These remaining bags were given to the association and subsequently delivered to the school children. The bags, blue in color, were distributed at the opening of the school’s cultural day in front of the entire community. Varian couldn’t be reached for a comment.

“It was awesome!” Greggio interjected. “Most students carry a plastic bag where their pens make holes and they start to lose their notebooks and other supplies. When we saw the bags, we couldn't say no to this!”

The principal of the school, Mr. Abdou Ngiago was also very appreciative for the bags that matched his students blue uniform shirts -a coincidence he commented in his last mail to Greggio. He is also the first person of contact for Greggio and Fournier who appreciate his and the teacher’s dedication to the students.

“Seeing the teachers has touched us,” Greggio said. “They are all young university graduates who have studied in Dakar. N’Diago is their first post and it is very hard for them. “

The school lies at the entry of the village, where only 8 teachers are allocated for the nearly 3 hundred children. Although French is the lingua franca for the Senegalese and of course taught in school, it is also a challenge. Most children speak Wolof as the first language and speak it primarily at home. There is neither repetition nor reiteration of French at home, something that both Fournier and Greggio understand all too well.

“At CERN the children come from many different language backgrounds,” Fournier says as she leans forward to take another sip of coffee. “French becomes their universal language to communicate with one another, for play. It becomes their universal language. That is why we incorporate sound to teach.”

The ‘sound’ that Fournier refers to is a teaching method developed by Madame Borel-Maissony, a founder of speech therapy in France who also coauthored a book called “Bien lire et aimer lire.” The method uses a variety of teaching tools, most notably phonetic and gestural signs to help with reading. In this case, the method helps the students get a grasp of a language they rarely use in their homes.

Point in fact, using these techniques to teach the children of N’Diago are important, as their time in school is quite limited. Although the lessons are organized similarly to its French counterparts, the weather and seasons add another decisive factor of whether or not the children attend. Extreme heat can shorten school days and in the months of July though October, the children aid their parents in the fields and in the village.

The primary school is composed of 5 buildings, where four buildings are reserved for lessons, and the fifth for an eventual library. There is no encompassing wall around the school, an architectural element incredibly important in the villages. The secondary school is in no better shape.

“There is nothing. There is no electricity, so their needs are very basic” Greggio added. “We are of course surprised. The heart of this project is for the wellbeing of the students, unlike other places where teachers tell their students ‘You learn or you don’t’. This is all for the kids and they work. They work hard.”

Even a small gift can make a world of a difference in these conditions. – ENLIGHT Coordination Office