Children of desert - Linking Education and Democratie
Project Description:
This project emerged from dialogues with communities during CARE's 1997 household livelihood security assessment in Maradi. The communities identified five major problems, namely: 1) school coverage is nearly nonexistant in the rural areas; 2 )access to education is a significant problem for girls; 3) the curriculum is inadequate; 4)
language is an inhibiting factor to learning; and 5) lack of government and donor funds. CARE's Children of the
Desert – Linking Education and Democracy Project aims to improve household livelihood security in Maradi,
especially in the districts of Madarounfa, Guidan Roumdji and Dakoro, by improving access to quality education.
Project interventions include building basic life skills, reading, writing, arithmetic, grammar and language skills among 1 800 children through 12 community-managed primary schools serving 20 communities, and thus develop capacities for participating in civil society. The project is participatory and demand-driven. Efforts to identify local
needs rely upon direct contacts with participants, who are involved in all phases of project planning, problem
identification, project design and evaluation. A participatory needs assessments in target communities helped in developing a direct relationship with project participants, and increased CARE's knowledge and local partners' about
conditions and development needs. The project uses child-centered teaching methods and focuses on improving
school management. Furthermore, this project tests a 4-year curriculum cycle for children who dropped out of school
(9 to 14 years) so that after the completion of this cycle, students can integrate into normal secondary school or a
technical school.
