Context:

Since we decided to help the "Faraja" orphanage, we have been able to see different areas where we can take action.

First of all, the food:

• No children seem to be undernourished, but of course, none are overweight either.
• When we used the first €270 raised to buy a total of 400kg of corn, rice, and beans, we could see in the director's joy the importance of this donation. Video

of course, clothes and school supplies are lacking, and sometimes to go out, the children lend each other their flip-flops/shoes.

As it is complicated to gather enough money to provide them with a new wardrobe and other supplies, we decided to leave that for later.

Finally, their ideas and vision of life are very limited: when asked what they want to do later, there are 3 options:

• some want to be police officers or military
• other athletes
• for others, to work in tourism.

We thought that we would be better able to open their minds to the possibilities that life can offer:

For me, having traveled and met people from different backgrounds could give them ideas,

For Laizar, his resilience in these various jobs and his desire to move forward regardless of the conditions (mines, etc.) are good values to pass on.

We are therefore moving forward with this project, but one question remains: How do we implement our ideas?

Our concrete actions

We thought of several solutions. At first, we tried to do it in the form of a lesson. I had written a story and translated the allegory of the cave, but we have to be realistic: it didn't have much impact on the few attentive ears. We are not professors, and those skills weren't going to come by magic.

We then thought about spending an evening around the fire like in Chemka Video to get to know each other better and help individually; we'll save that for later.

Finally, we met Ibrahim, a child who created a speaker with objects he found on the ground. Seeing this, we decided to help him create a larger one that would serve the entire orphanage. 

Our project is launched:

We will help him do this by buying the necessary materials.

Bringing your project to life will surely encourage others to want to do something.

The realization

After two meetings with Ibrahim, we come to an agreement: we buy the equipment and he finds the speaker and the electronic board. A simple plan that will nonetheless be followed by several twists and turns, as mentioned in our video on the subject.

We spent 5 days moving heaven and earth to find our equipment.

At the orphanage, the assembly sparked the curiosity of other children with whom we were able to spend good times. All united around our box (for now). Many were really involved, others less so, but we managed to capture their attention.

***

From now on, the speaker is functional and they generally listen to music before going to sleep.

Finally, we told them that we would like to support their project/idea as it is. This time, the ears were attentive.

What resulted from this epic

At first, seeing each other so frequently strengthened our bonds with the children. Because of this, another child confessed to us that he wanted to sing, and we immediately talked about it with our friend Bakary, who later invited us to record it. Can't wait to see what it's going to be!

I didn't initially think that the children would be so involved and come up with so many ideas. It was by asking them what activities they would like to do with the clients, when we have the opportunity to do so, that the ideas started flowing. They need to give me a list this Sunday; I know I will be surprised.

If you want to experience this kind of thing and continue to support us, 

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