The School's Birth and Growth

It all started in a neighboring village where, one afternoon, a wandering French woman met a small girl of the village, who brought her to the girl’s uncle. The woman asked the uncle, “What would you like us to do to help you?” And, he responded, “We would like to have a school,” and thus began the literacy school, supported by the French woman with the help of an association. The literacy school lasted two years.

But something had awoken in the village about the importance of an education, and the village was ready to act for themselves. They formed a committee to visit the education inspector in the city and demand a school; in response, in November of 2000, M. Ndour arrived in Sinthiou Mbadane as the school director and teacher of the cours d’initiation, or CI, the first year of school. With him, came order and formality – students were expected to arrive to school on time and to be present regularly – and the sounds of the French language. (Growing up speaking only Pulaar, many children had enormous pronunciation difficulties in French.)

In 2001, a request from two neighboring villages for a school, where there was only an unused école communautaire de base, was responded by the regional Inspecteur (like an area superintendent) with a simple “send them to Sinthiou Mbadane’s school.” Ndour, however, could not accept so easily that two more villages would send him students without the necessary space or teachers being provided to accommodate them. And he made that very clear to the Inspecteur! Still, unable to turn down students, he taught a split level class of CI and CP, the cours préparatoire that year

The following year, Ndour prepared to teach CP and CE1, the first-level cours elémentaire, and M. Ka was sent to the school to teach a rotating class of CI students. What a fortuitous and exceptional gift he was! Ka, in fact, was raised in a family where formal education was not prized, even looked down on; throughout his youth, Ka’s father battled against the wishes of the family in order to continue to send him and his brothers to school. Now, teacher, Ka found himself in a conservative, traditional Pulaar community that, just as his family had, continues to struggle with the importance of allowing their children a formal education. Propped up by his own life story, Ka’s awareness-raising efforts with his new Pulaar neighbors resulted in an enormous growth in the school’s population as they enrolled more and more of their children.

The physical structure was also growing – having taught in a provisory structure for the first two years, finally three concrete classrooms were built in 2003, thanks to the help of a German couple that was put in contact with the school. In 2007, the government paid for the construction of another 2 classrooms, and the 6th classroom was built halfway by a French association in 2007/2008; the final touches, and the furniture, was completed little by little with the help of the teachers and parents’ contributions, and the occasional donor who, in hearing of the school’s predicament, would give a table-banc or two.

The teaching staff continued to grow as well, with M. Badiane and M. Cissé being sent to Sinthiou Mbadane in 2005, allowing for a full 6-year elementary cycle at the school, but requiring that each teacher take on split-level classes. This situation was unbearable for the staff, as they themselves were conscient of the reduced teaching hours and support, and thus lower success rates, of students in such classes. With encouragement from the teaching staff, Ndour stepped forward to teach a class as well – in addition to his responsibilities as school director. Ever since, evolving situations have never allowed for him to leave the classroom, even this year as one of their teachers was sent to teach elsewhere, without a replacement teacher being provided.

Complementary and infrastructure and side projects have developed alongside the classrooms and the staff size. A school lunch program was started in 2003 by a French artist who funded the program with proceeds from his painting sales. With the crisis of the past few years, he has all but stopped his contributions, but the school’s staff worked quickly to find another supporter. They understand that, although enrolment doubled when the program was started, without it, many students would either go hungry all afternoon or would not even come to school at all. There are two latrines on the edge of the courtyard, and a well was built a few years ago as well, along with a vegetable and fruit tree garden that is maintained by the school guard. Recently, a French woman gave a solar system to the school, allowing them to have electricity for evening revisions and to charge batteries for electronic devices.