Back to school in Fak !!!

It's time for the 25 students
of the primary school of Fak
to open their notebooks.

On October 15, official date for school reopening in Niger, the school of Fak will open its doors.
Abdou Harouna, the teacher is ready and eager to start teaching again.

Thanks to the work of association Timidouwa, to the Club Humani-Terre of Collège Henry Matisse in Issy-les-Moulineaux and to the generous donors, we have been able to collect the the funds that will serve to cover the school functionning costs.

All in all, 1 800 EUR have been collected
and will be affected to the school.

Unfortunately this amount is not enough to cover the entire school year. As a matter of fact, the cost of food items has rised, as a consequence of the insecurity in the north of the country. We will the only be able to supply food for half of the year only, while we wait for new donations.

We have mandated Aghali Sidi Mohamed, a Tagaste worker, to go to Abalak where he will buy the food supplies and then convey them to Fak. During his mission he will inspect the school infrastructures and hold meetings with the students' parents and the school management comitee.

Order of the day: the formation of a school herd (each parent has been asked to bring a goat as a matriculation fee)

Thank you for your support....

More info on the situation of school of Fak as soon as Aghali comes back from his mission.

Make a donation
to support the school of Fak:

through the Sunflower Children non-profit foundation

or by contacting Association Timidouwa:

assotimidouwa@yahoo.fr

With the WATA, drinkable water the nomadic population of Tamaya

The Belgian Technical Cooperation in Niger will be funding NGO Tagaste so that the organization can realize its WATA project. The project consists in putting in place a water disinfection system in the rural locality of Tamaya.

The project was initiated in collaboration with Antenna Technologies, a franco swiss organization, that invented and distributes the system.

The WATA is a device that produces active chloride using only salted water, thanks to the electrolyse phenomenon. It is very easy to use, resistant and durable. Active chloride is a component that destroys or disables pathogene micro-organisms.

In 1 hour, the WATA can produce 1 liter of active chloride.

With 1 liter of active chloride, after dilution, one can obtain 4 000 liters of drinkable water.

The project will make drinkable water affordable for everyone, because the liter of chloride will be sold at 100 FCFA (about 20 cents).

The community radio of Tamaya, already equipped with solar panels, has been chosen to produce and commercialise the active chloride.

The project will start in May 2008, just before the rainy season and the transhumance, so that the populations will have an affordable solution to make drinkable water (in that season people usually drink water from the ponds formed by the rains).

To learn more about the project, write us at ongtagaste@yahoo.fr or visit Antenna Technologies website http://www.antenna.ch/

Artists from Niger support NGO Tagaste

Since June 2006, Minate, a tuareg jeweler from Tchinta-Baraden who travels very often to Europe to sell his pieces, has been supporting NGO Tagaste projects by donating 1% of his sales to the organization.

Minate's last sale in France was a success partly because he was helped by our partner Timidouwa.

Minate is planning to go back to France in October. He will then organize another exhibition of his jewelry during a benefit concert given by Koudede.

Koudede and his band will be on tour in Europe during that period.

To learn more about Koudede's tour dates, visit http://www.koudede.com/

To watch Koudede's video clips, visit http://cameranomade-fr.blogspot.com/

To learn more about Koudede's benefit concert and Minate's jewelry sale, visit Timidouwa's website http://assotimidouwa.blogspot.com/

The school of Fak and the club "Humani-Terre"

Since the beginning of scholl year 2006, the little primary school of Fak is supported by a solidarity project from the grade school Henry Matisse, Issy-Les-Moulineaux, France.

The goal of this project is to have exchanges between the students of Issy-Les-Moulineaux and the students of Fak.

The French students have created a club, called club "Humani-Terre" (a play on words on "humanitarian club"), in which the students have assisted to chats about Niger given by members of Timidouwa,our partner association. They have also made several arts and crafts activities, producing items that will be sold to collect funds for the school of Fak.

The open day at the Henry Matisse grade school, on june 23, was the culmination of the club's activities. The students had put together an exhibition about Niger, and they exhibited and sold their artifacts to their parents and teachers: lamps, pearl jewelry, plants...

At the end of the day, the members of the club "Humani-Terre" had collected more than 600 euros that will be used to ensure the school of Fak will open its doors for the 2007 school year.

In order to make this project durable and to establish a real exchange between Fak and Issy-Les-Moulineaux, NGO Tagaste will implement school activities: among other things, the students of Fak will take part in a photography workshop and put together a photo album about their daily lives that will be sent to the french students.

Mathilde and Sarah, from Timidouwa, present the students realizations.

Amiriguiz FM, the messenger of Tamaya

A radio for – and by - the community

The village of Tamaya is a rural community of the department of Abalak. It was born after the droughts of 1973 ans 1984, that decimated the breeders’ stock. From this moment on, populations started to establish themselves along the “uranium road”, the road that crosses the country to join Arlit, the mining city of Niger. Until 2003, when the radio was created, the vilage of Tamaya did not have access to any information source.

In 2001, the idea of creating a community radio is launched by Youssouf Alhaji and some friends, Mohamed Hamed and Kidik Inzigarene.

Two years of waiting...

In Niger, to create or install a community radio, the iniators of the project must organize in an official association, then obtain a broadcsating authorization with a specific frequency that only the High Council of Communication can deliver. All these formalities can really slow the process down. Moreover, everything is played out from Niamey, the capital , which is very far away from Tamaya.

The Association for the Promotion of the Tamaya Community Radio was created and got the technical and financial support of the United Nations Development Program , through the dutch NGO SNV-Niger.

The team still had to wait for two years before the community radio « Amiriguiz » (the Messenger in Tamajaq) could finally emit its first program, on Januaery 1st 2003, at 9 :00 AM.

Sensibilizing and informing

When i twas created, the Tamaya radio had 14 employees, out of which 9 were women.

The radio emits on a radius of 30 km, which enables it to reach a population of nomadic stockbreeders. The Tamaya radio has payed an important role in sensibilizing and informing the population on important themes:

∑ health concerns,
∑ schooling of nomadic children and in particular of nomadic young girls,
∑ early marriage,
∑ environmental concerns.

More recently, in October 2006, the Tamaya radio allowed NGO Tagaste to launch a campaign against plastic refuse.

Amiriguiz FM today

Today the radio encounters numerous difficulties (lack of technical equipment, lack of financial means, lack of employees), but hope is still here.

Radio Nomade, from Agadez, will collaborate with Amiriguiz and some of its programs will soon be broadcast on Tamaya’s radio frequency.