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Solidarity with more schools in Hann, Senegal
The covid-19 pandemic has also curtailed the possibilities of several other partner schools in Hann Bel-Air to engage with beach cleanings or other traditional activities to celebrate World Ocean Day, because schools were closed as a result of the lockdown in this particularly affected municipality. As a result, concrete solidarity activities could only take place end July in two schools, the Kawabata and Montagne 6 schools, later followed by two primary schools, Bara Gueye and Doudou Mbathj. After consultations with the schools involving Mr. Deme of Kawabata School, Babacar Ciss of the Soccer Schools (see above) and Aliou Sall, Vice President of Mundus maris, the composition and production of the solidarity kits was agreed. They consisted each of a set of protective face masks and hand washing containers.
In the Kawabata School, the director, Ms. Diouf, received the kits on 29 July 2020 from Aliou Sall (to the left) in the presence of a small number of pupils sustaining exams and then proceeded to wider distribution without a group ceremony.
In the School Montagne 6, the director, Ms. Sané, had some more freedom to organise a hand over outside the school building and had all pupils of the CM2 cycle and some teachers receive the face masks and containers directly from Aliou Sall.
As the good news made the rounds in Hann Bel Air, two more primary schools requested the support of
Mundus maris in the form of the solidarity kits, Bara Gueye and Doudou Mbathj. Luckily the production could be extended to cover also at least some of the needs of the pupils and teachers of these schools.
On 17 August an informal hand-over was organised as public movements and gatherings of groups of people continued to be restricted as a result of increased numbers of infections.
Ms. Diaw, director of the Bara Gueye School (to the right) took delivery of a batch of face masks, while Mr. Niang was happy about the solidarity kits for the Doudou Mbathj Primary School.
During the wider reflection about how to learn from this and other experiences during the collaboration Ms. Sané expressed disappointment with the equipment and IT skills of the teachers in her school. This had prevented making the best of the efforts afforded in participating in earlier Mundus maris Awards contests for World Ocean Day. She suggested an exchange with the other schools - with the exception of Kawabata School all in a similar situation - about seeking perhaps an additional partner who could provide the required inputs if the administration was not in a position to ensure that.
In addition to this comment by Ms. Sané, Mr. Dème, a teacher and one of our main contacts at the Kawabata School, mused during the delivery of the kits about the role played in recent years by Mundus maris and which had allowed several teachers to obtain substantial inputs for their courses on the environment. He made reference to the teaching kit on the ecosystem approach to fisheries (EAF) and all the resources / supports made available to them by Mundus maris. These can still be freely downloaded from the website.
Thus, he suggests that is would be good to organise from time to time updating sessions on marine ecosystems despite the pandemic. Such sessions should be for the benefit of ten schools (public and private) located in the municipality. More specifically, Mr Dème said he had discussed with some of his colleagues from the Municipality who would like to benefit from a first session on the subject focused on the "Role of the teacher against marine pollution". Given the knowledge he has acquired through the partnership with Mundus maris, he believes he can co-facilitate such a session with the representative of our organisation.
