Education Niger Project #49496

Building Brighter Futures For Children in Niger

by Rain for the Sahel and Sahara

Building Brighter Futures For Children in Niger

Project Report | May 23, 2022
Students Finding Success

By Amy Warnock | Development Manager

ALC students in their dormitory

RAIN's education programs help to provide the building blocks for students from rural communities to meet their potential. With so many children dropping out after elementary school due to there being no local middle school in their villages, the Agadez Learning Center (ALC) is a solution to a problem that plagues rural students throughout the region.

Take a look at the following story from one of the ALC's former students to see how RAIN's programming helps students succeed:

"My name is Aminata. I am 18 years old, I come from Sidawat, 250 km from Agadez, I spent one year (3rd grade) in the ALC. I was chosen to come to this center because at one point, I almost gave up my studies because my grandmother wanted me to get married early; she did not want me to continue my studies.

At the center (ALC), I had enormous advantages such as: accommodation, supervision, extra classes, school documents, food, and especially the follow-up . I passed my BEPC [exam] with success. But if I wasn't here I would already be married in spite of myself, with a dark future characterized by suffering of many kinds.

Now, thank God, I am already in the vocational training institute (ESEG). For this reason, I thank the people in charge of the NGO RAIN."

Your generous contributions help students like Aminata find success every day. Thank you for being a part of RAIN's community and believing that every child deserves the chance to thrive.

Please consider sharing this project with others to help even more students build brighter futures for themselves.

Girls participating in life skills classes

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Jan 21, 2022
A New Year of Learning and Fun

By Amy Warnock | Development Manager

Students enjoy some down time together.

The 2021-2022 school year is well underway with a new crop of students at the Agadez Learning Center. Youth in Niger continue to work hard to pursue an education in spite of socio-economic barriers. This year the Agadez Learning Center had it's biggest class yet with 44 students spanning 3 grades. RAIN was able to accept 32 new students (all girls) this year in addition to having 12 students return to the center.

Still, due to the economic stress caused by the pandemic, many families kept their daughters home for marriage. Child marriage is an unfortunate alternative for many rural and nomadic parents who are unable to send their children away to continue their schooling. Your support helps provide families like these, with no local middle school, with the support and resources to be able to send their children to the city for school, delaying child marriage and providing opportunities for a bright future.

This school year the center is hosting a group of children from across the country. Recruitment took place in villages stretching over 1,000 miles with new and returning students attending from 23 different communities. It seems as though word has spread regarding the Agadez Learning Center and when RAIN's recruitment team arrived back in Agadez, 20 students were waiting there with their families in the hopes of testing into the center!

Students are also benefitting from after school classes including Math, French, Physics/Chemistry, English, and Earth Science. In addition, students recently received library cards for the French Cultural Center, which they attend weekly to access varied resources and documents to help with their studies.

At the center it is also important that the students still have some time in between classes and after-school courses to have fun. Some of the kids' favorite activities include dancing, soccer, and hopscotch.

Thank you for your overwhelming generosity that helps give these children the chance to be children; to learn and play in a safe and healthy environment. As we continue to raise funds for the center's expansion, we hope that you'll consider continuing your support to help us broaden our reach and provide access to education for more and more students every year.

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Sep 23, 2021
Students Continue to Persevere

By Amy Warnock | Development Manager

9th grade students in class

“There are seven kids in my family; I’m the youngest and the only one who goes to school.”

Takan Mohamed, 9th Grade Student

Takan is one of the students in RAIN’s mentor program who has overcome hardships and worked diligently to pursue an education. The mentor program helps children in Niger complete their schooling to create opportunities for financial security later in life. This includes motivating students to continue going to school even when they have limited access to education.

The Coronavirus pandemic has put even more stress on these students over the past two years. Though Covid was less disruptive to the academic year this year than last, schools still closed for just over 3 weeks as school buildings were used as sites for community food distribution. As a result, like last year, many schools across the country did not complete their curriculum and many students will be forced, yet again, to repeat a year of school. This cycle is extremely disruptive – each time a student needs to repeat a year, it reduces the likelihood that he or she will continue and complete his or her education. Fortunately, the Agadez Learning Center (ALC) and our mentoring program are structured to help reduce dropout rates and maximize the likelihood that our students complete their curriculum.

Preliminary data for the 2020-2021 school year retention rates suggests that 3.6% of students at partner middle schools dropped out (which is significantly lower than regional averages) and among mentored students, that rate dropped to 0.7%. And among the subsection of girls at the ALC and in RAIN homestays, it was 0%.

Further, we saw that RAIN students had greater academic success than their peers. In early July, students across the country sat for the end-of-middle-school (9th grade) BEPC exam. Students at our ALC had a pass rate 50% higher than the local average. Lower classmen, though they did not sit national exams, also had positive outcomes.

The feats that the ALC has accomplished this year could not have been achieved without your generous support. This exciting expansion project will double the number of students that the ALC will be able to house, therefore doubling the impact where help is needed most.

RAIN is continuing to raise funds for the ALC expansion. In an exciting update; we were recently gifted a $30,000 match that will give us a much-needed push towards our end goal of $125,000. Please consider donating towards this matched gift in order to make your dollar go twice as far!

8th grade students studying physics and chemistry

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