Building a Path to Education for At-Risk Youth

English language learning in Guinea

Guinea has a rich diversity of local languages, with French serving as the country’s official language. Both French and English are taught in schools, and MindLeaps offers supplementary classes in both languages to the children in our dance program. We believe that English language skills also create expanded opportunities for youth and adults, and we organize a Community English Program for members of the local community. In July, our center held a graduation ceremony for current Community English students, who received their certificates of completion.

MindLeaps has also been running virtual classes with American instructors to teach English to Guinean teachers, students and artists. Visiting teachers have traveled to our center as well to augment English language learning with in-person classes.

Guinean artists make up one of the new groups taking English classes at MindLeaps. Over the years, MindLeaps has come in contact with a wealth of talented young performing artists in Guinea. Without English language skills, it has been difficult for many traditional dance troupes to market their performances to a larger international audience. Giving them a tool to enter competitions, interact with sponsors, and communicate effectively through social media creates new economic opportunities for promoting their art and culture around the world.
 
Girls Get It in Uganda

In Uganda, 30 girls, age 14 to 18, are currently enrolled in the Girls Get It Virtual Academy program. The MindLeaps Virtual Academy is a learning platform that helps students use technology to learn competitive skills in such areas as Digital Literacy, Business Entrepreneurship, Communication, Project Management and Budgeting, Sexual and Reproductive Health, Child Development, Inclusion, and Social Media and Marketing. Participants access courses online wherever they may be. To accommodate low-bandwidth locations and minimal electricity, Virtual Academy classes are delivered through WhatsApp and low-resolution videos easily accessed on smartphones provided by MindLeaps.

The participants in the current Girls Get It program are from the community in Kampala and attend school in grades 8 through 10. They also take advantage of the ICT (Information and Communication Technology) classes offered at the MindLeaps Center in Kampala. For the Virtual Academy, the girls are organized into groups on WhatsApp, and courses are led by experts in the various fields, who lecture through voice messaging, supplemented by occasional Zooms. The girls’ active engagement in the Virtual Academy can be seen in the 4,000 to 5,000 WhatsApp messages exchanged weekly!

Celebration in Rwanda

July marked the 10^th annual Ubumuntu Festival, held every year in Kigali during the last week of the 100-day commemoration of the 1994 Genocide Against the Tutsi. ‘Ubumuntu’ means ‘human’, and the aim of the Festival is to unite people through the universal language of art, promoting communication, reflection, creativity and expression. The Festival is a platform for coping with trauma and driving social change towards peace and cooperation.

Again this year, MindLeaps youth performed at the Festival, appearing on opening day. Fourteen of our young dancers, including two refugee youth from the Mahama Refugee Settlement, performed a beautiful and moving piece choreographed to bring to life the unifying themes of the Festival. It was so rewarding for our kids to have their talents spotlighted in this way – they shone on stage and we are so proud of them!

A fundamental component of the MindLeaps program is of course the core structure of dance classes leading to entry into formal schooling. Our dance program develops the cognitive and social emotional learning skills necessary for success in school, but we know that the overall health and well-being of our children and their families are equally important to achieving success and self-reliance in life. To promote overall health, we run a range of programs at our locations for the children, youth, families and communities we serve.

To begin with, our dance classes are not only crafted to foster cognitive skills and social emotional learning, but involve a great physical workout as well. Kids have fun exercising their dance moves, keeping active and energized.

To provide support for personal hygiene, at our centers in Rwanda and Guinea, each child entering the program receives a personal sanitation kit including a towel and soap, a toothbrush, and sanitary napkins for girls. This starts them out with good hygiene habits. The centers also provide access to clean water for the children to wash their clothes, as their living situations often lack easy access to soap and water.

Our meal programs offer an important source of nutrition that may not be so regular at home. The children and youth at MindLeaps are supported with a variety of meals and snacks. Our Jim Bell Centre in Kigali, Rwanda, currently serves over 1000 meals weekly, including porridge, rice and beans. The MindLeaps Center in Conakry, Guinea, also averages around 1000 meals weekly, including breakfast and lunch. In Uganda, local favorites like chapatis and mangoes are served daily to the children in our programs. In Mauritania, meals for girls and boys include porridge, spaghetti and bread. Nutrition they can count on is essential for children to have the energy to focus on both dance and their studies.

As our students move toward adolescence, MindLeaps knows that it is important to address issues and provide learning opportunities centered around sexual and reproductive health. To serve our youth, we offer Sexual and Reproductive Health Education for both girls and boys through classes and workshops. Topics covered range from pregnancy and prostitution, to self-worth and cultural expectations that affect both girls and boys. There is a focus on healthy relationships, as well as hygiene and disease prevention. In Guinea, for example, weekly sessions are attended by up to 40 girls and 20 boys. The aim of the program is to help our youth navigate puberty and learn healthy practices leading to reproductive health and well-being.

Promotion of health awareness extends to families as well. In Rwanda, as part of our Family Strengthening/Self-Help Groups Program, parents of MindLeaps children receive financial training, which includes facilitating their pooling of resources to create a medical insurance savings fund.

At MindLeaps, health and fitness are vital to positive growth and success!