Footbridge Films

Amanda and I have arrived in Senegal. At the time of writing this we have slept here three nights and seem to have finally pulled out of jet lag. Our first day was full of meetings and we even had a chance to do an interview with someone who works in the literacy department. Here is a transcription of one of the story’s she told us.

Ok, the first one is a young teenager, I would say she went to a French System school and the teacher, it was after five years this teacher said she can’t come back because she’s so stupid because she can’t learn how to read and write. And she was really discouraged so she stopped coming to school . and we managed to have some basic literacy classes in this village and Monitrace the teacher came to this young teenager and she said, you have to come and go to the class and she went, I visited the class and she was doing fine. And she said to me, look look, I can read was doing fine. And she said to me, “Look look, I can read!” And I said, yes yes! It’s good! One year later I came back and she said just ran and said to me, “look! I am not doing the bass number 2 but I am doing the bass number three. And she skipped one class , normally we have the bass one and bass two and bass three. But because she was good in bass one, she should change to bass three, and she was so excited! and she said “Look! I am not stupid! I can read, I can write in my language!” and at the end she was quite… her father said you don’t have to go in this class but she managed to do all the class and in order to have a certificate and the last day we had a big feast and she was so proud to have this certificate and she was going everywhere with this certificate and just for her self esteem it was just good and it was very happy for her just to be able to write and read and just say “I am not stupid” So it was just good!