Bildungsförderung Oberguinea e.V.

20.05.2017

General assembly with our president Martine Clémot.

As every year, the members from Germany, Switzerland, and the Alsace met to discuss current topics. This year the agenda was very full, which lead to a marathon meeting. There was a lot of new information from the delegation that traveled to Fodécariah, as well as the presentation of the Organisation’s new Web site, the calendar campaign, the sponsorship of young girls, etc.

06.05.2017

Africa charity concert in Giessen for the benefit of our school project in Fodécariah.

We are very happy that our friends in Giessen are putting on a charity concert for the benefit of our school project.
Announcement in the &bdquo;Giessener Allgemeinen“newspaper

A long article had been published in the &bdquo;Giessener Anzeiger“ newspaper:

11.04.2017

The new Guinean Minister of Education (in office from March 2017) visited our school project in Fodécariah.

In October 2016, the teachers in Kankan went on strike because they had not been paid any salary for many months. This brought to light a corruption scandal, which lead to the resignation of the former Minister of Education, Ibrahima Kourouma. The first official act of the new Minister of Education, Ibrahima Kalil Konaté, was to visit the disaffected teachers in Kankan to learn first-hand about the situation. Much to our delight, the Minister of Education was able to visit our school project in Fodécariah during his official trip. He was very impressed with the infrastructure and quality of the school building in Fodécariah, and in particular the school’s cafeteria. He promised to use official funds to provide a regular supply of food to the cafeteria. In 2016 the World Food Program (WFP) added the school cafeteria to its school food program and supplied sugar, oil, and beans, although not yet in sufficient quantity to enable the provision of a midday meal for all students. For this reason, the offer from the Guinean government is very welcome!

Report in French on Guinean national television covering the official visit of the Minister of Education (from minute 18).

03.04.2017

400.– € donation from the Alfred-Wegener-Schule in Kirchhain

Great news for the Organisation: The students in form 5 of my school spent a week organising fund-raising activities for Fodécariah and would like to donate the 400 € that they managed to collect.

As part of the week-long project, the students compared the life of children in Germany with the life of children in Fodécariah and produced the following diagram (click the picture to enlarge).

22.03.2017

Visit of the American ambassador to Guinea to our school and cafeteria in Fodécariah.

The American ambassador was very impressed with the school project and in particular with the school cafeteria. He thanked our organisation for this wonderful project and expressed his thanks to the donors, too.

01.02.2017

4 new teachers for our school!

We are delighted to announce that 4 new teachers will enable us to expand greatly the scope of our teaching curriculum. From left to right in the picture:1. Mr. Kaba Mansaré will teach French to students in grades 7 and 8. 2. Mr. Mamadouba Koffiou Camara will teach mathematics to students in grades 7 and 9. 3. Mr. Mamadou Lamarana Barry will teach chemistry to all students. 4. Mr. Faya David Tonguino will teach English to all students.

15.01.2017

Delegation 2017: Inauguration of the high school and cafeteria

During our official trip in January 2017, the newly built school and cafeteria were officially opened by the Head of Education in Guinea, Mr Keita (wearing the golden watch), who was also accompanied by the head of secondary education for the Kankan region, Saramoudou Kourouma (in the white jacket).

Report (in French) on the opening ceremony shown on Guinean national television (from minute 25)

05.01.2017

Kick-off delegation 2017

During our general assembly, it was agreed that we would finance the purchase of a flight to Guinea for a photographer, who would use the trip to provide us with new images that we can use on our website, in our brochures, and for the calendar campaign. We were very lucky to meet Daniel, a probation officer and amateur photographer, who accompanied us during our trip. Daniel was always on the lookout for great new images and presented us with hundreds of pictures. This was his first trip to the African continent.

Martina, 41 years old, manager of eight kindergarten in the Rhein-Neckar area, and mother of two children, had been planning to take some time off and wanted to spend it with her 13-year-old son, Thilo. She was looking for something unusual and away from the comfort of every-day life: something of an adventure that would help them to better visualize the size and scope of the world. She heard about our planned trip from her partners and bravely decided to join our delegation. It was the first time that Martina had set foot on the African continent, an experience she describes in a refreshing and humorous blog: Delegation 2017.