Tamesna School–9 candidates for Junior high

Tamesna school continues to thrive under the direction of Assadek.  As advised by the inspector of schools, nine students are skipping fifth grade to become candidates to go to junior high school next fall 2017.  This will be a challenge.  It is at this stage that most nomadic children drop out because there are no junior high schools in the bush so they must go to a city.  Agadez is very far from their home and the life they know and too far for their parents to visit.  Our longterm dream is to build a junior high boarding school at Tamesna, but we aren’t ready to do that yet, so to accommodate the nine kids who will be ready in the fall of 2017, we have a plan for an interim solution in Ingall.  Sidi Mamane, our Niger representative, is now mayor of Ingall and has the power to allocate a lot for housing the nomadic children who want to attend the junior high school in Ingall.  We propose to  construct Tuareg tents–which is what they are used to–on this lot and provide food, if the parents will provide someone to cook for and care for the children.  Since Ingall is only 35 kilometers from Tamesna, it will be possible for the parents to visit and perhaps take turns caring for the children.  We will leave the organization of that up to the parent teacher committee, under the watchful eye of Sidi.  One of these students dreams of returning to Tamesna as a teacher one day–we want to encourage them.   I hope one will become the clinic director.

Candidates for junior high school in 2017.

In the meantime the younger students are doing well and still need our support.  We are hoping to build the second set of classrooms this year to accommodate our ever growing student population.

Mariama Issouf

Tamesna classes with director Assadek.  The rows on the left are the candidates for junior high.  They need special attention this year to prepare.

Looking at the students drawings for this year.

In a few weeks you will get our annual newsletter and learn how you can support these kids in their quest to make real contributions to their community.