Mamoudou Keita, the vice president of our NGO, co-founder of the association in 2007 and for many years very active around our school projects in his country of origin, has been in contact with the diaspora of Fodecariah&Balimama since last autumn..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaspora

This diaspora is a group of about 250 people from Fodecariah and the surrounding area, scattered all over the world, mainly between the United States, Asia, France, Belgium, Morocco and West Africa.

All their discussions take place in Malinké, and they concentrate all their energy, ideas and donations to advance the development of their country. It is good to see how active and fast they act. They are overthrowing the old, very paternalistic and conservative structures to bring modernity to Guinea.

Numerous studies show that migrants who are well integrated in the host country contribute greatly to the development of their country of origin. Integration and attachment to the country of origin are not mutually exclusive. The economic and socio-cultural potential that the diaspora can offer plays an essential role in the development of the countries of origin. Migrants transfer money to their relatives and acquaintances and invest in the development of their countries of origin through small businesses. But they also contribute to the development of their country of origin in the destination country through the transfer of skills, knowledge and experience.

We all hope that together with Mamoudou and the new sub-prefecture, they will bring a new wind to motivate young people to take school more seriously, to quickly learn about new technologies and to find and implement new small business ideas!

Due to the Covid pandemic, we already knew that Mamoudou Keita and I as President would not be able to travel to Guinee this winter, so we appointed Oumar, a member of our association who had decided to live in Africa again 2 years ago, as our local representative.

Why Oumar?
D abord parce qu il fait partie de cette culture et qu il maitrise de plus en plus la langue Malinké.

On the one hand, because he is part of this culture and increasingly speaks the Malinké language.
On the other hand, because he has spent 10 years here in Europe between France and Germany, and has thus learned the way our societies work and their requirements.
In addition, he has already worked for 2 years as a volunteer for our ONG in Fodecariah:

1. In the first year 2018-19, he ran our computer lab by teaching classes to college students throughout the school year and assisted Martha, our 2nd volunteer, who came for 3 months to run the entrepreneurship game.
2. In the second year 2019-20, he handed over his knowledge and the computer room to a French teacher who now offers 2 hours of free computer courses to all Fodecariah students. He has also brought order and transparency to the girls' support project, together with the project officer Bettina Rocholl.

After 2 years as a reliable volunteer, with his commitment to the promotion of the youth of his country, as well as his very good language skills in German and French, we could not wish for a better coordinator on site. He will help us to maintain the existing infrastructure and to expand our radius of action in order to create more perspectives for the whole Balimana region.

Currently, with the help of the youth NGO of Fodecariah, he is leading our last project for 2019-20: The Youth House. He is also visiting all the surrounding villages to learn about their most urgent needs.

A small group of chimpanzees from the village of Bossou in Guinea (West Africa) have achieved fame because they have highly developed abilities, surpassing all other chimpanzees.

The primates have learned how to disarm the traps set by poachers without hurting themselves. To do this, they have studied snares and understood exactly which parts of them are dangerous so that they can avoid them and destroy the trigger mechanism. The monkeys even actively seek out the traps to crack them. They also use small stone hammers and an anvil to crack the nuts. It almost looks like a Stone Age man.
To illustrate this extraordinary intelligence, watch one of the chimpanzees trying to start a motorbike. (2 min video recorded by our driver)

Unfortunately, the animals are very endangered. There are only three males and four females left. The reason: agricultural burning has fragmented their habitat. As a result, they are cut off from other groups and cannot mate. The good news is that last week one of the females was seen with a baby. It is a female, which is especially important in order to give birth to more offspring.

To ensure the survival of the group, a "migration corridor" must now be built, a kind of safe "migration route" so that the animals can visit other chimpanzee groups and reproduce.

In these covid-19 times, when culture is under threat worldwide, we recommend you watch this 90-minute African opera that traces the history of the Malinké people from the time of the Mandingo Empire of Soundiata Keita (13th century) to the present day, where the kings of the Keitas gradually became museum guards in various European capitals after slavery and colonisation, and continue to preserve their fetish statues, including the Boli.
https://www.tv5mondeplus.com/player/106862972_74079A

The famous Malian singer Fatoumata Diawara had to learn to sing like a "griot" in Malinké.
You should know that not only are statues locked in our country, but that the Congolese artist Emery Mwazulu Diyabanza is regularly imprisoned for trying to return some of our museum's fetish statues to where they were stolen in Africa!

The colonial legacy is still too present, there are still many things that need to be put back in their place, right down to the African spirituality that has been replaced by Christianity and Islam, two colonial and missionary monotheistic religions that have stolen the African soul!

Listen to these African professors:
a topic for debate, so that young people understand that not only fetish statues have been stolen from their cultural heritage!
https://youtu.be/VYC_eGM2bGE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rKKGsnie9k
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75i_wMzijA8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fa46yvslA9w