Dear reader,
Welcome to this blog. I hope to be able to update it with some regularity.
At present I'm sitting in my room at Nørrebro very conscious that my departure is exactly one week away. This is the time for my last preparations. Buying malaria-pills: check, getting shots against everything from yellow fever to the-odd-chance-of-encountering-a-prehistoric-bug-with-a-killing-desease-that-killed-thousands-from-200-100-BC: check. Getting names and faces of all the stakeholders in Masanga: kindda check (difficult to remember everyone from pictures though). Preparing a strategy and timeline for our work in Masanga regarding every program: Well I'm beginning to understand every program in full and Hindauja (my co-manager) and I have a lot of ideas for what we want to get done. But I am very much aware of the potential pitfall of getting to clear ideas of how and what should be done prematurely. Afterall, I haven't encountered African reality yet, and I want to stay humble towards the job and the ability of the locals to contribute with their ideas and experience.
One thing that I really love about this project is its focus on local ownership. In itself a contradiction. How can a project, which is founded and headed by westeners ever achieve a real degree of African leadership? It cannot, but I guess you can to a higher or lesser degree include the locals in the project and trust them with more or less responsibility.
I hope to keep these thoughts in the back of my head throughout my stay. But I do think it will be a major challenge, as it can often seem the most effective to do most things yourself.
I will leave you with these few thoughts for now. In advance I apologize for the grammer and spelling in my current and future posts - but my experience in the art of writing english is somewhat poor, and have not really been trained since my collegedays. I do hope that the blog will make for a ok read in spite of these mistakes.
Thank you for visiting, I hope you to have roused your curiosity, and you will find time over the next six months to frequent this site and follow my REACTions to my experiences in Sierra Leone.
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Promoting education in Sierra Leone
Project React
REACT in short
REACT is a small-scale innovative NGO-project that wants to found and develop a central education institution in Masanga in the heart of Sierra Leone. By improving the level of education and extending the access to information, REACT hopes to reduce poverty and streghten democracy in the area and thereby give the people of Masanga a more promising future.
REACT is a voluntary NGO-project under the humanitarian organisation VIAid. Both VIAid and REACT is based in central Copenhagen in Cafe Retro.
Read more about the project on REACTs homepage.
REACT is a voluntary NGO-project under the humanitarian organisation VIAid. Both VIAid and REACT is based in central Copenhagen in Cafe Retro.
Read more about the project on REACTs homepage.
The Six Programs
Masanga Education Center seeks to support the access to and local level of education through six programs, which will be briefly outlined below:
Library and study facilities
This program seeks to promote the local level of knowledge by providing access to study facilities such as light, computers, and a quality selection of books. Currently the library contains approx. 200 books.
In-service traning of teachers
The goal is to highten the quality of the education provided by the local teachers. This will help to increase the level of education at local schools and enhance the outcome for the pupils. This program will be carried out in collaboration with IBIS.
Lending of school materials to local schools
Offers the local teachers better materials for teaching. This program will include "normal" teaching materials such as educational sets of books as well as more innovative materials combining pedagogical and creative thinking such as lego.
IT-education
This program seeks to bridge the digital gap between Sierra Leoneans and westenerns by providing access to and educating locals in the use of computers and relevant software.
Adult education
In Sierra Leone two out of three people are not able to read. Through this program REACT seeks to help marginalized groups with few opportunities in Sierra Leone through providing them with a formal and certified education.
Life-skills seminars
This program aims to enhance the general level of health and conditions of life through a series of seminars for specific groups. Currently this program contains a group of local women, who have undergone seminars regarding issues such as "Sanitation and Hygiene" and "Sexual Education" with fortcoming seminars regarding "Home Economics" as well as "Arts and Craft".
Library and study facilities
This program seeks to promote the local level of knowledge by providing access to study facilities such as light, computers, and a quality selection of books. Currently the library contains approx. 200 books.
In-service traning of teachers
The goal is to highten the quality of the education provided by the local teachers. This will help to increase the level of education at local schools and enhance the outcome for the pupils. This program will be carried out in collaboration with IBIS.
Lending of school materials to local schools
Offers the local teachers better materials for teaching. This program will include "normal" teaching materials such as educational sets of books as well as more innovative materials combining pedagogical and creative thinking such as lego.
IT-education
This program seeks to bridge the digital gap between Sierra Leoneans and westenerns by providing access to and educating locals in the use of computers and relevant software.
Adult education
In Sierra Leone two out of three people are not able to read. Through this program REACT seeks to help marginalized groups with few opportunities in Sierra Leone through providing them with a formal and certified education.
Life-skills seminars
This program aims to enhance the general level of health and conditions of life through a series of seminars for specific groups. Currently this program contains a group of local women, who have undergone seminars regarding issues such as "Sanitation and Hygiene" and "Sexual Education" with fortcoming seminars regarding "Home Economics" as well as "Arts and Craft".
About me
- Emil Thylin
- I am 24 years of age, from Denmark and studying political science at the 8th semester. For the next six months I will work as manager at Masanga Education Center in Sierra Leone. This blog will thus serve as testimony and jungle drum from a country so recently plagued by a devastating war and still tormented by the inflicted wounds.
Author's greeting
Thank you for visiting my blog. I hope you will find, that your time here is well spent. First of all I wish to stress that this blog will be expressing the thoughts of its writer, Emil Thylin, which should therefore not be considered identical to those of REACT as an organization. Second I will encourage all me readers to consider this as much as a forum of mutual exchange as a personal blog. I will throughout my stay welcome any opinion, input or simply words of encouragement, that you may wish to share. Thirdly I would like to bring the fact to your attention that internet-access in Masanga is indeed a scarce ressource. This will have its natural restrictions as regarding the time avaliable for me to use on updating the blog as well as answering any enquiry or comment on it. I will therefore ask for your patience.
Once again thank you for visiting this channel for my thoughts which no doubt at times will be as confusing as my thoughts themselves. Enjoy!
Once again thank you for visiting this channel for my thoughts which no doubt at times will be as confusing as my thoughts themselves. Enjoy!
Hmm, Anders mener du har lovet at starte etniske og evt andre konflikter, hvorfor er det ikke nævnt nogen steder? :)
ReplyDeleteLovende start, synes du er ganske velformuleret og sælger projektet godt, selvom du jo tydeligvis har solgt din sjæl til projektet:)
God tur :) Kalle
Håber turen gik helt efter planen og et 50 grader skift ikke får dig helt i coma. Vi glæder os til at høre om de friske første indtryk. Hvis ting stikker dig håber vi på at det kun er for det gode! knus hjemmefra
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