Educate 120 Girls in Mauritania

Dance & Data

MindLeaps currently has 107 children and youth enrolled in its Dance & Data program in Nouakchott, Mauritania’s capital city. These students take part in MindLeaps’ dance classes, which are not only fun and engaging for them, but also built on a carefully crafted curriculum designed to develop critical cognitive and social-emotional learning skills. Each student’s progress in skills acquisition is closely followed through MindLeaps’ unique software-based monitoring and evaluation system, Tracker. A key goal of the Dance & Data program is to encourage critical thinking in youth, by guiding them to develop the skills they will need to make positive choices and independent decisions later in life.

Our Trainers

Leading the dance classes are MindLeaps’ highly skilled dance trainers, including Alioune, Moussa, Hawa, Hamza, Gambi, Lalla, Amarane and Fati Sow (photo above). MindLeaps recruits trainers locally from its Train The Trainer program, which prepares participating youth through intensive training sessions where they learn the MindLeaps curriculum, methodology and tracking system. MindLeaps is committed to recruiting its teaching staff from talented local youth who are part of the community and understand the needs of its vulnerable children. MindLeaps instructors track and record changes in cognitive skills and social-emotional learning through the Tracker system. Most recently, the teaching team has also been trained in the use of a new addition to the reporting system that integrates all programs into daily WhatsApp reports from trainers.

Family Outreach

An important aspect of MindLeaps’ work goes beyond the classroom. Outside class hours, MindLeaps trainers make weekly visits to students’ homes. Home visits allow staff to follow up on the living situations of the kids, better understand any problems they may be having, and keep parents involved in the learning trajectory of their children.

The story of 14-year-old Azize is an example of just how important it is to maintain open communication with families. Azize lives with her parents and three sisters. She loves to learn and had always been a great student, but at a certain point she began missing classes. MindLeaps staff made a home visit to see what the problem might be. They learned that her parents didn’t like her attending dance class because, in their minds, dance was just a frivolous amusement. MindLeaps instructors talked with the family and explained that the objective of the dance program was to develop key skills that would advance their daughter’s education and prepare her for success in life. When they understood the larger goal and how the program worked, her parents allowed her to continue with classes. In fact, today Azize is the top student in her dance class!


Performing to Inform

MindLeaps Mauritania also runs a Performing Group, where twice a week dance students meet outside class to create performance pieces that can reach out to the larger community. The Performing Group has used expressive dance to address societal problems. In March, the group performed an original piece for International Women’s Day. MindLeaps’ talented trainer Lalla Towiloum developed the choreography for the piece about gender-based violence. The group is currently preparing a new piece addressing problems, such as the dropout issue, faced by kids in school. The Performing Group not only promotes self-confidence and creativity among its members, but is also a means of communicating vital messages to the community.