October 30, 2018

EDUCATEURS SANS FRONTIERES AT A GLANCE

MOHAMED VALY CAMARA

EDUCATEURS SANS FRONTIERES-EDUSAF Belle vue N’zérékoré, Guinea

Email : edusaf3@gmail.com Tel : (+224) 664172031/628373870

Introduction

We live in a social age charecterized by digital technology, innovation and rapid change which have brought to light many social problems. The global community is overshadowed with many complex social problems which need redress. Lack of opportunity, inequality and social injustice are producing test for change. People are becoming keen to these issues and are demanding their right for equal opportynity, social equality and justice. Central governments government cannot solve these problems without the help of civil society organizations, nongovernment organizations and othe actors who are passionate about change.

Poverty is one of the striken problem facing the global community. Majority of the world poor live in the developing world. Africa in one of the continents tha are highly hit by poverty. Majority of the African earn less than $2 a day which make it difficult for majority of the households to secure basic necessities or even cater to their family members properly.

In majority of the developing world, rural communities are deprived of basic social services and infrastructures necessary for their development. Adequate and quality educational infrastructures are lacken, qualified teachers are in short supply, control,monitoring and evaluation of educational activities are not properly carry on. Moreover, rural people are deprived of adequate health and sanitary services, skill training and modern agricultural skills and methods.

In Guinea, rural communities are not fully considered in the central government development planning. Urban development is pramount to the government. this has been the cause of underdevelopment in most part of the country, thereby making life difficult for the rural people.

The unfolding social problem cannot be solve by governments alone, intervention is needed from local actors(NGOs, civil society organization etc.), international NGOs, international development partners, philanthropists etc. This will help to find lasting solution to the problems throught the application of researched innovative menthods.

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Who are we and what we do?

Educateurs Sans Frontieres-EDUSAF is a non governmental organization founded to implement and promote sustainable development Goals(SDG) of the united nation. The SDG is viewed by the founders as the solution to the social and economic problems face by the local people who are believed to be marginalized in the socio-economic development plan of the central government.

The local communities in Guinea are not fully prioritised in development planning, this led to the endemic social and economic problems ravaging the lives of the people. Local people are deprived of better road infrastructure, adquate school infrastructures, qualified teachers to give quality education to their children, argricultural assistance to help improve their farming methods and boost their productivity, skill training and micro loan, adequate and quality hospital facilities, quality health services to improve their health, and they lack sanitary services which can make them hygenic and keep their environments clean free of pandamic diseases. We intervene to bring change to the lives of the local people and their commuinities.

Our mission: We help the local people to change their lives from worst to better by giving them hope and opportunities. We give them quality education, skill

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training, income generating activities, productive agricultural skills and services, quality health and sanitary services.

Our vision: Equal opportunities and better living condition for all.

Our goal: is to better the living condition of the local people.

With the combination of quality educational services, skill training, income generatining activities, productive agricultural skills and services, quality health and sanitary services, the local people will have better socio-economic opportunities by acquiring sustainable sources of income, good health and clean environment free of epidemics and pandemic diseases. The outcomes of this, is better living condition for the local people.

Our areas of intervention:

1) Education2) Poverty eradication3) Fight hunger and promote sustainable agriculture4) Health and sanitation

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5) Gender equality, girls and women empowerment6) Promotion of peace and social cohesion7) Environmental protection and the fight against global worming

Our main area of intervention is education. We prioritize children. We give more priority to girl children education.

In the Guinean society, girl children are deprived of educational opportunities. They are not allowed to complete the primary and secondary education, which is necessary for their intellectual and professional development. Even when they acquired the basic primary and secondary education, they are deprived of professional and higher education and forced into marry. This denies girls of equal opportunity with their male counterparts. Girl children are vulnerable to early marry, prostitution, sexually transmitted disease and HIV AIDS. If concrete step is not taken at the early stage to protect and give them their rights, they will be deprived of better sources of income and eventually, better living condition.

We intervene for better future for girls. We fight to keep them in class, facilitate their learning process and commit them to education.

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Why we prioritize child education

Guinea has a population of 10.5 million with the poverty rate of 55.2%. It ranked 183 of 188 countries in the United Nation Human Right Development Index in 2015. A multidimensional child poverty analysis conducted in 2014 revealed that 97 per cent of children suffer from at least one deprivation, and 47 per cent suffer from at least three deprivations. More than half of the population are under the age of 18. Adolescents account for more than 24 percent of the population, and most of them live in rural areas. Gender inequality and disparities between men and women remain high with regard to access to basic social services and economic opportunities.

Why focus on girls

Girls are marginalized in the Guinean society. They are frequently denied of quality and sustainable education, better health and hygienic services. They do not receive the needed support for their educational and professional developments. Adolescent girls are impeded from continuing their education at

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the primary education level or at post-primary deduction level, and parental support for their education is not forthcoming.

Girls do not receive the quality education they deserve for their intellectual and professional development due to lack of adequate educational facilities and trained teachers. School facility location may at time compromise their security and protection. Some are even left without financial and material support in the mid of their educational journey, which forced them out of class. When a girl child is 9 or 10 years old, she become potential candidate for early marriage and vulnerable to sexual exploitation.

400 million adolescent girls aged 10-19 are in middle income countries and 170 of them are not enrolled in school. This is a clear indication that early intervention is necessary to avert the damage. It is a wide spread believe among research institutions that, girl education gives her the chance of better career and employment, better economic opportunity and equality in the society. It also makes her opportune to have good and educated children and have the quality to participate actively in the development of her community.

Our target group

Adolescent girls aged 9 - 18 are the target group of our program. These girls are locals and live in the rural area. We work in Guinea forest region where our beneficiaries are located and where the problem of adolescent girls is deeply rooted.

In this region, girls are deprived of quality education, basic skill and economic opportunity. This region lacked of adequate educational infrastructure and trained teachers. Existing educational institutions are understaffed and lacked of proper monitoring and control.

These shortfalls were worsened during the Ebola crisis, which affected the country educational, health and economic sectors. This Ebola virus took the lives

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of many teachers, nurses and physicians, and parents. This left many girl children orphan. There are 6233 Ebola orphan children in Guinea, majority of whom are from the forest region.

Our solution

1-Education

Despite improvement in school enrolment rate 84.5%, an estimated 1.5 Guinean children age 6-16 remain out of school. Girls’ enrolment in primary school is lower than that of the boys. Primary school completion rate remains low at 61.1%. Girls’ primary school completion rate 57.5% is even lower compare to that of the boys 66.5%. Adolescent marriage remains high with 21% before the age of 15 and 52% before the age of 18.

It is evident that, adolescent girls’ marriage creates health complication for them. Some at time, died during childbirth and some even live with lifetime health problem. Moreover, those that are married no longer continue school.

It is estimated that, over half of women are illiterate in Guinea. This hinders their chances of better social and economic opportunities.

However, with concerted effort, this trend will change in favor of adolescent girls.

2- Empowerment

Women in genera and adolescent girls in particular need to be empowered. If adolescent girls are enabled physically and mentally, they will be able to better their own lives. There will be low level of child abuse, child trafficking, early marriage, childbirth mortality, forced marriage and gender base violence.

Medical complications from pregnancy and childbirth are the leading cause of death among girls ages 15 to 49 in the developing countries. Compared with

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women ages 20 to 24, girls ages 10 to 14 are five times more likely to die from childbirth, and girls 15 to 19 are up to twice as likely.

3- Gender equality

Equality between men and women is a right of adolescent girls, which should be given to them. Social injustice has been an impediment to women self-actualization. Women should have access to basic services as their male counterpart (education, health, sanitation, economic opportunities). They should have their say in decision-making and occupy key decision-making positions in both the public and private sector.

The myth about gender equality should be rectified. There is no religion that do recommend gender inequality. The three Abrahamic religion-Judaism, Christianity and Islam recommend full respect for women and right to ownership of property and self-determination. No adolescent girl should be forced into a marriage against her will, made to leave school or deprived of skill and intellectual attainment.

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Educateurs Sans Frontières activity report For the year 2018

Many adolescent girls in primary and secondary schools cannot read, write or do simple mathematical problem. This is one of the major causes of their failure to continue primary and secondary education. When a girl child sees that, she cannot read or write, understand what is taught in the class, she become reluctant to continue learning. The result of this is boycotting school and giving up to street vending, prostitution and early marry.

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Keeping adolescent girls in school is vital to their future social and economic life. They will be able to obtain primary and secondary education necessary for their professional and intellectual development, thereby leading to the breakup of the cycle of poverty and guaranteeing them better living condition.

Our intervention is tailored to bring change into the school life of adolescent girls, give them the sense of hope, self-confidence, commitment to schooling and the courage to continue with their learning until graduation.

EDUSAF was able to recruit 50 adolescent girls for tutorial classes in basic literacy and numeracy. The program started on January 20, 2018 and ended on June 15, 2018.

The process started with identifying the beneficiaries by interacting with them through class and home visitation, enquire about the difficulties they face in class with the lessons and, what is their needs to address this problem. Students who were identified to have difficulty with reading, writing and calculation, were registered in our repertoire for the program.

The registration was done on three levels as follows: Elementary 25 students Junior high 15 students Senior high 10 students

A team of experienced teachers, based on the national English language-teaching program and the West African examination council syllabus, designed syllabus for the courses. Courses Thought are: English Grammar, Reading and comprehension, Qualitative aptitude, Writing and Mathematics.

At the elementary level, we focused on basic literacy and numeracy and qualitative aptitude. Students were thought how to pronounce words in English( noun, verb, adjectives, etc.), construct simple sentences, read short text and understand it, define the eight parts of speech and their usage, do common arithmetical calculation and know how to count numbers from 1-1000.

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At the Junior and senior high levels, where selection was done from 7th grade to 10th grade, students were thought reading comprehension, dictation, English grammar, basic calculation and mathematics. They learned how to read short and long texts comprehend their contents and answer questions relating to them. They were thought how to spell words correctly, construct simple and complex sentences and apply the rules of grammar in speaking and writing. As mathematic is one of the major problem of adolescent girls in school, students were tutored in basic arithmetical calculation and solving mathematical problems (Algebra and geometric).

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Outcomes of the programStudents were able to read and write, do basic calculation and solve mathematical problems, pass school quizzes. 95% of the beneficiaries were successful in the school final exams and were promoted to the next classes.

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Annual budget for the fiscal year 2018

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