Sponsor an IDP Child

Arts to End Genocide's program to Sponsor an IDP child at the Faladje Camp in Bamako, Mali, has continued through the year 2023.  We had some very positive feedback about the dance program that was instituted at the end of 2022 and another session has now started.   It is our goal to not only feed the children and their families but to give them a little joy during their otherwise dismal existence on a garbage dump.

An outsider was brought in to evaluate the program.  Suzanne Diarra is the Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist.  For the evaluation she visited the camp twice and asked questions of the children and the parents - the following are the highlights:

• According to the children, dancing is an opportunity for them to come together and have fun.
• “Dancing is important because it allows us to forget certain worries,” said an 11-year-old boy who had attended dance classes since the first lesson. Apart from a few children interviewed, most say they do not even know the importance of this dance but they like to participate in it.
• According to some children, in addition to dance movements, they learned to count. Many children today know numbers.
• The children come to participate in these dance sessions to have fun and to have gifts. During our interviews with the children, one child let us know that he would like to be a great dancer one day if he finds the means to go to a dance school, he will.
• According to some parents of children who attended this activity, dancing helps to entertain the children and create social cohesion between them. Many children met on the site through this activity. The time devoted to dancing allows some parents to do their domestic activities more quickly and safely in the absence of children.  The children who participated can now count from 1 to 10 in the Bamanankan language.
• There is no fixed number of children determined to participate in this activity. But we find that there are more than eighty children  up to 200 participating.   The different dances the children were taught included different regions and ethnic groups:  Bambara, Fulani, Woloso and Bobo.

The money donated to the "Sponsor an IDP Child" goes to the whole community.  Training for the Women's Cooperative formed at the Camp has given several of the mothers training in how to run a business.   From the sewing initiative, ATEG is now offering some of their products to be sold at The Tryon Palace Museum in New Bern, NC.  We hope to get more of their sewing products out to the public in the near future.  Educated, working mothers help the whole community at the Faladje Camp.  As in the past year, ATEG coninues to distribute rice on a monthly basis, pay for physicians and nurses at the clinic, as well as pay for medicines that they need.

We thank you all for your generous support and hope that you tell a friend about this program, so that they too, might want to sponsor a child living on a garbage dump in Bamako, Mali.