Dear Friends: A few years ago, I wrote about a visit to Salemata in southeastern Senegal, where I had met with people and we had discussed their communities and challenges. Since then, I have traveled to the region a few more times, and last month we finally went with the whole team to do a workshop in Kedougou.
A few years ago, I wrote about a visit to Salemata in southeastern Senegal, where I had met with people and we had discussed their communities and challenges. Since then, I have traveled to the region a few more times, and last month we finally went with the whole team to do a workshop in Kedougou.
Kedougou is the region’s capital, located about 700 kilometers from Dakar. Most of the way the road was good (meaning fairly flat asphalt, very few potholes), but then, because the final leg leads through the Niokolo-Koba National Park, the driving is terrible. It took us two days to reach our destination. But we saw monkeys (no lions; they’re very rare), the company was good, and the car did not break down—so altogether it was a good time.
We went at this time because on the weekend we were participating in a big celebration: the dedication of the Oniyan New Testament. Oniyan-speaking people are a group who have suffered from wars with neighboring ethnic groups and have been pushed into a hilly area with poor farmland, the poorest part of Senegal. Other ethnic groups often call the Oniyan clumsy and backward. But on the day of the New Testament dedication, for the first time ever there was a huge celebration with hundreds of people who came from all around to honor the Oniyan people and their language. Many Oniyan people are Christian, and they had worked for a long time on the translation project, which included a song-writing project and other translated materials. Now they would be able to really start using the results of their work.
On the Monday after the dedication we started our four-day workshop with 13 participants. Through the Shalom workshop we discussed change in the community and how to bring it about, using examples from World Renew experiences and stories from the Bible. The course was participatory, so it included lots of group work, questions to participants, and activities. For example, when I explained how different people accept change at different times, I asked the participants to line up in the order in which they got their first mobile phone—and we learned that someone had got his first phone already in the 1990s, and that the last person to get a phone did so last year. In this way I was able to show that there are different stages in acceptance of and enthusiasm for a change, and that something similar happens with villages accepting the installation and use of wells or with people sending their children to school.
During the workshop everyone on our team taught a session, and the two translators, Paul and Jeremie, translated for us from French to Oniyan, and vice versa. The whole group of participants commented on how much more they learned from the participatory approach with stories and small group discussions, as compared to listening to lectures in the past. We are now planning to return more regularly and gradually build up our work in the Kedougou region.
Shalom,
Esther Kühn
Program Consultant
World Renew Senegal
Joys
- We had a safe and productive trip to Kedougou with the World Renew Senegal team, including volunteers David and Jessica, and Mary Crickmore, the West-Africa team leader.
- The Oniyan pastors who participated in the Shalom workshop really enjoyed the learning style and content and had a good time together. They intend to apply this in their own communities.
Challenges
- We are working on the evaluation of the Adolescent Health Program and on finding the right ways to continue this important work with SLDS and CECS. SLDS currently has eight adolescent health groups.
SLDS: Services Luthériens pour le Développement au Sénégal (Lutheran Development Services of Senegal) was formerly known as EELS: Église Évangélique Luthérienne du Sénégal (Evangelical Lutheran Church of Senegal
CECS: Comité Evangélique de Coordination pour la Santé (Evangelical Coordinating Committee for Health) is an association of the 3 protestant denominations in Senegal, put in place through World Renew consultation and support. The association works with local communities that do not yet have the capacity to manage HIV & AIDS, malaria, adolescent health and other health programming.