Education Benin Project #36763

Empower 100,000 children in Benin with Education

by Fondation Graines de Paix

Project Report | Nov 18, 2021
Thankyou for supporting quality education in Benin

By Fiona Theunissen | Manager Partnerships and Communication

Dear supporters,

We would like to thank you for your extremely precious support of our work to provide children in Benin with a fulfilling, peaceful future through our full quality education programs.

With your support, we have been able to work with the Ministry of Education in Benin to train nearly 3000 pre-school teachers in the southern regions of Benin and over 2000 primary school teachers in the north of Benin in pedagogical approaches that reduce violence in schools, introduce culture of peace concepts and practices and ensure the fulfilment and achievement of both teachers and students. This training affects the lives of thousands of children. Class sizes in the country can be as high as 100 students per class. Once trained, the teachers are using the guides and tools to integrate the concepts and activities into their teaching approach and plans.

The north of Benin is particularly fragile. It is bordered by highly unstable and violent countries. Our program has helped to ensure that children in this region develop the skills to avoid violence now and throughout their lives. The training of teachers has reduced the use of violence as a disciplinary measure which is helping to keep children in school for longer and enabling them to learn better.

Throughout this program we have worked hand in hand with the education ministry. Our pedagogical experts have trained pedagocial counsellors in our methodology so that they can carry on this work indefinitely. With their new expertise these staff are already conducting training for teachers, providing ongoing support and carrying out evaluation activities.

Following on from this program, we have developed Better School for Girls which addresses many of the gender based violence issues affecting girls participation and success in education and professional life. We hope you will continue your support of this extremely important work.

We are extremely grateful for the collaboration of the Ministry of Education in Benin and the support of our major funders, the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation and SmartPeace Foundation, but also to you, our loyal individual supporters whose contributions make it possible for us to develop, enhance and conduct the training which is so important for ensuring that children attend school, succeed and go on to live positive, peaceful and successful lives.

Permalink

Oct 27, 2021
Final stretch for our three-year project in Benin!

By Christophe Viltard | Project manager

Dear Friend,

It is with great joy that we share with you the final stretch of our project. Since 2019, we have been working hard to develop appropriate learning resources, train trainers, manage the roll-out of cascade training, conduct workshops with our partners to improve the quality of our interventions, produce and deliver media awareness messages, etc.

Our project to introduce culture of peace education in the target departments is coming to an end in December. Despite the health crisis, we have now reached all of the project's beneficiaries as planned: more than 4,500 teachers have been trained and accompanied and more than 2,400 families have attended awareness-raising activities. Have we made the desired changes in education practices? Many testimonies allow us to anticipate this, but we want to measure it.

Measuring such behavioural changes with rigour is a challenge: each of the project’s objectives is associated with a choice of indicators; each indicator is measured by crossing several sources of information. The formulation of the questions themselves must not induce bias, for example desirability bias. We will compare the responses of our beneficiaries with those of people not affected by the project in order to highlight the changes brought about by the project. Our trainers are currently travelling around the country with surveys for teachers, and conducting interviews with groups of parents and children.

We are looking forward to the results of these evaluations, which will allow us to learn more about how to improve our projects as we continue our work in Benin. We will make sure to share them with you.

We thank you for your interest and your support! Please stay informed about Graines de Paix's activities in Benin on our Benin Facebook page and about all we do in West Africa, in Switzerland and elsewhere on our website.

VERSION EN FRANCAIS

Cher·ère ami·e,

C’est avec une grande joie que nous partageons la dernière ligne droite de notre projet. Depuis 2019 nous n’avons pas ménagé nos efforts pour concevoir des ressources pédagogiques adaptées, former des formateurs, gérer le déploiement des formations en cascade, mener des ateliers avec nos partenaires pour améliorer la qualité des prestations, produire et diffuser des messages de sensibilisations par les médias, etc.

L’introduction de l’éducation à la culture de la paix dans les départements ciblés par ce projet arrive à sa fin en décembre. Malgré la crise sanitaire, nous avons maintenant atteint comme prévu l’ensemble des bénéficiaires du projet : plus de 4500 enseignants ont été formés et accompagnés et plus de 2400 familles ont suivi des animations de sensibilisation. Avons-nous bien apporté les changements souhaités dans les pratiques d’éducation ? De nombreux témoignages nous permettent bien de l’anticiper, mais nous allons le mesurer.

Mesurer avec rigueur de tels changements comportementaux relève du défi : chacun des objectifs du projet est associé à un choix d’indicateurs ; chaque indicateur est mesuré en croisant plusieurs sources d’information. La formulation des questions elles-mêmes ne doit pas induire de biais, par exemple des biais de désirabilité. Les réponses des bénéficiaires du projet seront comparées avec celles d’une population qui n’a pas été concernée par le projet pour mettre en évidence les changements apportés par celui-ci. C’est pourquoi les chargés de formation de Graines de Paix sillonnent actuellement le pays avec des questionnaires pour les enseignants et mènent des entretiens avec des groupes de parents et d’enfants.

Nous sommes impatients de connaître les résultats de ces mesures, ils nous permettront d’en apprendre davantage dans la perspective d’améliorer nos projets pour la poursuite de notre travail au Bénin. Nous ne manquerons pas de vous les présenter.

Nous vous remercions vivement pour votre intérêt et vos soutiens !Nous vous invitons à suivre nos activités au Bénin sur la page Facebook Graines de Paix Benin ainsi qu'en Afrique de l'ouest, en Suisse et ailleurs sur notre site web.

Links:

https://www.grainesdepaix.org/en

Permalink

Jun 17, 2021
How "Mr Hothead" stopped using violence in schools

By Fiona Theunissen | Manager Partnerships and Communication

Workshop on non-violent education for parents

Dear friends,

In northern Benin, the school dropout rate is one of the highest in the country (18%), mainly due to violence and discrimination. Outdated and sometimes violent disciplinary approaches to teaching continue to be perpetuated through generations as teachers have never been trained in alternative methods. Violence in schools is often perpetuated outside of schools and throughout life. It is imperative that we provide teachers and students with the skills to live, work and contribute to society in a positive and peaceful manner.

Samuel*, a teacher at Gogounou, recently told us that he was well known at school for being violent.

“Since the beginning of my career, I was infamous for beating up students. Those around me thought of me as the strictest teacher. This has earned me the nickname "Mr. hothead". I was proud of it without knowing it was affecting my students. During the Graines de Paix training, I regretted all the acts of violence that I committed against my students out of ignorance. I bitterly regret all the harm I have done to these innocent souls, and I am happy that I have managed to get myself to gradually abandon this bad practice. "

Over the last 3 years we have been providing training in peace culture education, giving educational advisers, teachers and parents the skills to teach using positive approaches and avoiding violence and disciplinary actions. And we are seeing results like the transformation of "Mr Hothead".

Despite the challenges associated with Covid, since the start of this year we have succeeded in training more than 900 preschool teachers, 1,200 elementary school teachers, more than 1,200 parents and reached more than 60,000 children. Over the next few months, we will focus on completing our planned teacher training, follow-up and evaluation activities for teachers and parents in Northern Benin.

Thank you for your interest and support! We could not accomplish this educational transformation without our community of generous, committed supporters. We invite you to continue to follow the progress of this program on our Benin Facebook page and to visit our website.

* Name changed to protect the individual's privacy.

Links:

Permalink

1 2 3 4 ›

About Project Reports

Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.

If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can receive an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.