Thank you. Before my parents came out to visit back in April, they started a little appeal for pens and pencils for the small group of girls in the area that we teach. With the help of so many people back home, as well as radio Shropshire, it turned into a huge campaign! I expected a small a bag of left-over pencils and pens, but instead was presented with 2 suitcases full of amazing stationary and teaching equipment, and I can't tell you how grateful we've been! 

So, FASJOM. This is the name of the group that was set up just over 2 years ago by two of the previous Project Trust Joal volunteers with help from a wonderful lady serving with the American Peace Corps, Connie, whom we also had the pleasure of meeting whilst we were here. In Senegal, by law, all girls have the right to go to school and to have equal educational opportunities to the boys. In reality however, many still aren't attending. The reasons for this vary from early marriage, (some girls are married as young as 14 and most drop out of school at this point) lack of funds (as culture dictates that it is the men's job to solely provide for his family, poorer families, if having to make a decision about who to send to school, will tend to favour the boys)  an attitude of religious education over French-system schooling and a need for mothers to have someone to help around the house and learn how to cook and clean (a lot of women will spend their adult life doing this.) As a consequence, many of the girls in our neighbourhood do not attend school so, on  Monday and Friday, we teach them basic French and Maths. Whilst boisterous and unpredictable at times, these girls love to learn and put an amazing amount of effort into their work. Despite knowing we have FASJOM twice a week, they still run up to us in the street saying 'nungui jang tai? Est-ce que dinanu jang tai?' - 'are we going to learn today?' 

Running FASJOM is the most difficult part of our project, but by far the most rewarding. Both work-load wise and money-wise this project comes from us. This is where you came in. Trying to balance buying good stationary and not blowing all of our money was proving tricky and we weren't able to provide everything for these active and visual learners. Your donations were overwhelming, I can't believe how many people, suppliers and businesses gave  so generously. It was so touching and has been so useful! We were able to give the girls new (sticky back plastic-ed) books which survive more than 2 lessons, new pens which they take great pleasure in owning, teaching them maths using the counters and number squares and French verbs using the whiteboards so that they can rub out their mistakes and distracted scribbles. They have responded amazingly to the new learning styles, and wil be able to benefit from the donations for we hope, many years as we are passing it all on to next years volunteers. 

All that's left to say is thank you. Thank you from Charlotte and I, and an even bigger thank you from the girls at FASJOM, Mame Diarra, Mame Kane, Ami, Mame Diarra, Soda, Sira, Khady, Jenaba, Anna and Ndeye and I'm sure, the girls who wish to join in the new school year. FASJOM is not as ideal as school would be, but it gives these girls the opportunity to learn where there wasn't one before. We really can't thank you enough. 

I'd like to say a special thank you to the Ruyton XI cafe, who took in the majority of the donations! 
(Our internet isn't strong enough to upload photos, so photos to follow)