Educate 120 Girls in Mauritania

As the 2020-2021 school year came to a close in July of this year, students in their last year of primary school in Mauritania took their national exams in order to be promoted to secondary school. MindLeaps is sponsoring over 300 students throughout all MindLeaps programs globally this year, 116 of which took their national exams to graduate primary school. At MindLeaps Mauritania, 25 students were sponsored in school and 6 took the exams.

This month, MindLeaps organized and held a graduation ceremony for two groups of graduates. The first group consisted of girls graduating from Vocational Training School, and the second consisted of 20 students who completed the MindLeaps Virtual Academy. The MindLeaps Virtual Academy is an online learning program started during Covid-19 that teaches our students Business Entrepreneurship, Project Management & Budgeting, Child Development, Communications, Digital Literacy, and Inclusion. To accommodate low bandwidth, minimal electricity, and poor living conditions in Mauritania, the classes are taught entirely through WhatsApp.

At the graduation ceremony in Mauritania, Rebecca Davis and Bashir Karenzi, Executive Director and Program Director of MindLeaps, and Sy Djibril, Director of SOS Pairs Educateurs, made remarks to the audience. In addition, a special tribute was held for the family of our lost trainer, Mohamed Seyid.

Stories of Change: Raki

When 12-year-old Raki began the MindLeaps program in November 2020, her teachers could see she was a bright young girl, but very shy. She did make friends with two girls in class, who, like her, spoke Fula, one of several languages spoken in Mauritania. But when asked to dance with other students, she would cry, and she was easily upset if she thought others were better at class exercises.

MindLeaps teachers consider the needs of each student, and have found ways to encourage Raki and help her work through her difficulties. For example, she now has fun playing games that are designed to bring students together. In the MindLeaps environment, children learn that they are all part of one group and that they need to try to communicate with everyone, not just stick within their own ethnic circle. Gradually, Raki has opened up and is much more at ease. Now, teachers say she’s smiling a lot – laughing and talking with other girls as they learn each other’s languages!

MindLeaps youth trainers in Mauritania lead the dance classes, collect data on their students' skill development through Tracker, and conduct home and school visits.

Over the last several months, our trainers have been teaching classes and collecting data through Tracker, a kinesthetic-based monitoring and evaluation system. 92 children are regularly taking dance classes from these trainers.  The trainers enter the skill of every student during every class in Tracker. Over time, they are able to determine skill improvements and areas where they should focus. Below you can see data analytics produced through Tracker in April 2021 for one of these groups of students.

In addition to teaching dance class, one of the activities of MindLeaps youth dance trainers is to conduct home visits. These home visits enable us to check on how our students are progressing as well as ensure that our youth are safe and maintaining their focus on education. The home visits also reach the parents to help them understand the benefits to their kids of participating in MindLeaps' program and going to school; otherwise many parents of girls may feel that it is more important to have their kids stay at home.

 As part of a project funded by the U.S. Embassy in Nouakchott, the youth enrolled in MindLeaps' Virtual Academy in Mauritania have participated in 10 cultural exchange sessions with youth from the U.S. High schools and dance programs participated from all over the U.S., including from Georgia, Indiana, Minnesota, Arizona, Texas, Kansas, Connecticut, North Carolina, and Maryland. Students from both countries presented about their cultures, families, and shared their hobbies, visual art, poetry, and dance.