Construction of a Library for a Primary School

Project location: Senegal, Oukout
Project start date: April 2009 - Project end date: January 2010
Project number: 2008-47
Beneficiary: Association Oukout Africa

  

The civil war conflict in Casamance has deeply changed the structure of the school system of the area. The majority of the schools closed. The school issues of the Senegalese children are also due to the inability of the State to maintain and extend the educational offer (teachers, classrooms) and constrained the communities either to deal with the lack of teachers and operation costs of the public schools, or to create schools in a Community initiative due to the absence of any help of the State. Another reason of the school problem is related to the school absenteeism. Indeed, during certain periods of the year, the season of harvests, some children must help to work harvest and give up the school. The fathers also go away and migrate towards the North in order to work and send money for their families. To achieve a universal scholarship in 2015, Senegal worked out in 2000 a decennial Program of education and formation (PDEF), having as a main objective "education for all, the key for the development ". The PDEF aims also at the' achievement of "a universal primary school of quality and an improvement of the education access with the formation for competences/skills useful for life ". However, in spite of this governmental will, some schools still have needs as well on the teaching level as the material level.

This project financed by the Nando Peretti Foundation for education and human development by the association Oukout Africa proposes to intervene in the village of Oukout, more precisely in the primary school of Oukout, south of Senegal, for the benefit of the children suffering from exclusion and social marginalization. This proposal for a project of education aimed at strengthening the organization and the Community participation in the area of the education of the community of the school of Oukout. Due to the insufficiency of books (in the school), few pupils manage to make real, concrete activities of self learning and improvement in reading. This situation is due mainly to the lack of infrastructures which cannot satisfy their needs: a library totally equipped would represent one component of an answer of this issue. General objective of the project: Improving the access of reading for the pupils of the elementary school of Oukout. Specific objectives: - To improve the expression with the oral examination and also the writing. - To generate a place for the pupils of the school of Oukout in situation of poverty to have the possibilities of discovering the pleasure of reading. - That the children consider the reading to develop creative abilities/skills and comprehension, in their process of school learning, individual and social life.

Photo of the region of Casamance

Activities of the project

1- Rehabilitation of the building to transform into a library for the school (work masonry)

2- Transfer of the book donations to the school (about 1500 books) organized by Oukout Africa in Coordination with the school Oukout

3- Organization and installation of the library and planning of the activities of reading prepared/armed by the teachers of the school.

4- Play activities, workshops of reading organized by the teachers of the school (Activities of motivation to the reading, Activities of development of the reading, Activities of reinforcement of the reading) Teaching

5- Evaluation: academic control of the progress/improvements of the pupils readers. (evaluation in a short term)

6- Organization of activities sets of themes (theatre...) using the book as support

7- Final report/ final evaluation of Oukout Africa of the project.

Examples of activities of promotion of the reading to develop once the library is installed: "Play" activities which can be realized in class like exercise of reading. They are multiple. Below some examples: A/Activities for the development of the vocabulary Objective: to improve the level of vocabulary and the orthography

Ex: to invent words, disordered letters, synonymous and antonyms, the tree with words, complete the words B/ Activities of memorization Objective: to improve comprehension of the reader and the short-term memory C/ Activities of orthography and attention Objective: to wake up the attention, to enrich the vocabulary, to support the training of the orthography. Ex: similar words, repeated words... D/Activities of syntax Objective: to improve comprehension of the reader, syntax E the linguistic reasoning. Ex: to order the text, to discover the sentence.

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