kindergardens4senegal.org

Mixed feelings….. sadness, that my flight home on 12 May has been canceled…

.... happiness, that I am able to be here on site, until the construction work on the kindergarten complex is finalized.

With the concrete decision at the last general meeting to offer our support to the existing kindergartens in Sédhiou, we are now working on our largest project of this year's construction phase - an entire kindergarten complex. In addition to one existing classroom, we are adding two spacious classrooms for further classes, which up to now had been taught in makeshift classrooms that were in very poor condition. In addition, there will be a divided toilet for girls and boys, probably also an office and a small storage room. One classroom is already completed, the bricks for the second room are being laid and the toilet is getting a foundation.

It actually fell right into place which one of the eight schools with integrated kindergartens we would help build worthy classrooms and toilets first. It was after a meeting at the inspectorate when unexpectedly Elhadji showed me the school next door, which he himself had attended as a boy. We discovered the construction work for a classroom that was too small. A teacher in attendance informed us that a kindergarten room was to be built there. The director himself is trying to help the children to get better conditions with a part of the school fees. Spontaneously I said to myself, if construction is already underway, why a half-batch solution? Furthermore, the school has no income to finance further work on the building, since all kindergartens will be closed until the next school year (October 2020).

And that is why I decided to finance this building and to enlarge the room’s space from 50 m2 to 100 m2. In a concrete conversation with everyone responsible, we became aware of the additional shortcomings. So we extended our project to two classrooms, a toilet, an office and a storage room. The buildings will be arranged in a semicircle, so that a separate kindergarten area will be created in the large school grounds, where the little ones will have their own protected area.

We also had some delays because of the corona virus. But we are confident that we will be able to finish the building work on the last classroom and the toilet, maybe even the office and the storage room before mid-June, before the rainy season. Further projects will be started again towards the end of the year, after the big rain. Meanwhile I have a whole folder with requests from the local schools. Every time I visit a school, I can see for myself that they have to teach in very improvised and also unsuitable rooms. And the toilets are often a miserable sight.

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We rely on donations to pursue our plans.

Thank you very much.

I rebooked my flight to the 20 July and hope that I will really be able to fly to Switzerland this time. I am looking forward to all of the encouters and reuions.r

Best regards,

Marielle Furter

President, Project Manager