Learning for 100 more adults in Senegal.

We hope you will enjoy reading Fallou’s account of how this project is helping him to overcome his lack of education and advance his dream career.

My name is Fallou. I am a dancer and choreographer. I am 23 years old and live with my mother in Kaolack, Senegal. My father died when I was 8, leaving my mother to bring up myself, my brother and my two sisters. My mother sold fruit - mangoes, oranges, bananas, peanuts … but this provided only a meagre income so I had to drop out of school during my third year of primary school. I went to help in my uncle's television and radio repair workshop. His workshop was next to a government youth centre where many young artists came to learn and rehearse. This is where an international Senegalese dancer named Pape Ndiaye a.k.a. Kaolack influenced me and guided my first dance steps.

After years of practice with talented artists from different regions of the country, I am now gaining national recognition. Today my goal is to travel the world through my dance.

I perform at a cultural centre, a place for meeting and exchanging ideas and an opportunity to meet foreign visitors, funded by the ministry of culture. Though I am able to express myself through contemporary and traditional dance I find it very difficult to speak with these visitors because I wasn’t at school long enough to master French, our national language, or learn any English, the language that allows communication all over the world.

This is why the Diapalante Community Education Centre is so important to me. It gives me the chance to improve my French (writing, reading and expression) and learn English. Understanding these languages will give me many opportunities in my field. I love to dance because it is the best way to express my feelings.

There is nowhere else like the Diapalante Community Education Centre. Everyone can come and learn here because the classes are free and organised to allow you to attend when you can, whenever you have a free time day or evening, even at the weekend. The lessons are very good and we help each other. There is also a library and the chance to use computers.