Social and Employment
Place
Mballing (80 km south of Dakar), Senegal
Sponsor
Philippe Guilaine
Grant(s)
10 000 € to the Selection Committee at 2009/06/16
Project leader
Lhusci
"I want to emphasize the importance of mobilizing the persons concerned on the spot: Mr. Aliou Ba, the headmaster of the primary school, who has worked unsparingly to find new partners, as well as the Mballing youth association, who bravely knocked on every door to raise the funds.This clearly demonstrates how strongly the inhabitants of the village are convinced that education is the primary factor in the economic development of their country."
Philippe Guilaine
Not far from M'Bour, on the Atlantic coast about 80 km south of Dakar, Mballing is a village that accommodates and works for the social regrading of many hundred lepers among the population of about 3700 habitants.Since 1991, the French law association Lhusci (International Humanitarian and Health League) is helping Mballing to develop, like any other commune.Structures as essential as the primary school, health and social facilities to care for the sick, renovation and extension of the water network, the construction of latrines in concessions as well as their electrification, are projects that have already been completed.And all of this in close cooperation with the local players.
All the local players mobilized around the project
In early 2009, Lhusci started looking for new financial partners in Europe to help it finalize the construction of the junior-high school of the commune.The Veolia Foundation decided to get involved.The aid granted will contribute to financing the construction of the last three classrooms of the school, located on the first floor of the building (the ground floor, an administrative unit and a sanitary block were built in 2007-2008).
The Mballing School under construction already accommodates, in addition to its own students, those of two neighboring villages, making a total of 390 students.The last three classrooms will help fight the present saturation of the premises.The headmaster, the craftsmen and the students are fully involved in the project: for them, the development of the commune obviously demands raising the schooling level of all its young members.