Help 80 Secondary Pupils in Niger Read and Write

Niger, like many other African countries, does not have a "reading and writing culture", which makes teaching literacy quite challenging. Most students do not have books in their homes. Many parents also do not know about the resources they could offer or seek out to further their children's education. Differences between the language used as the educational medium and the language spoken at home add to the difficulties of building a reading culture.

 Yet, without the ability to read efficiently, children cannot be lifelong learners because they cannot access information and their knowledge quickly becomes obsolete. They cannot cope with the flexibility required in the workplace today. Poor reading ability translates into poor quality learning.

To work on these crucial issues, our association is helping Hampaté Bâ School with teacher training, good learner material and a remedial program in order to implement a literacy and language programme that produces learners who are equipped for high school.

 The remedial teacher, Mr Cyril, uses a variety of support materials and techniques to encourage the simultaneous development of the four language skills - reading, writing, speaking and listening in a balanced way.

 “I don’t want my students to make peace with mediocrity, I want them to aspire to excellence”, says Mr Cyril and he adds, “I believe improving reading outcomes is improving these students’ life outcomes as well.”

 Thanks to your donations, we have been able to fund this specialized teacher, who is meeting the challenge of bringing students up to level, by giving them extra hours of small group tutoring. Many of the students sponsored by our scholarships really need this help, as they came from primary schools with 80 students per class where they learned basically nothing.

 We are proud of our actions to help these students learn to read. So many children don’t have access to education and risk being part of another generation of poverty, We WANT to make a difference and we can do it TOGETHER with you. We are deeply grateful for your continued donations, no matter what amount, We are determined to continue our efforts so our students can get an education, to overcome ignorance. This is important. Thanks so much.