Awa Traoré Visits Yoonu Njub Training Center
The Centre Socio-Culturel Yoonu Njub, located in the Pikine Bas-Senegal neighborhood of St. Louis, is a professional trade school for young Senegalese women. The school offers young women from disadvantaged backgrounds a 3-year professional training in the areas of sewing, embroidery, crochet, and cooking, as well as in literacy, health and nutrition, home economics, English, computers, and small business. The director of the school, Feluine Diouf Fall, often states that "each girl here is a special case." Many are orphans or live separate from families, have never been to traditional school, or left school at a very young age, and are illiterate or only semi-literate. The school trains them and helps them find internships and jobs after they graduate. It gives them a place to learn a trade while also gaining in self-esteem and self-worth.
In an effort to provide the young women who attend the school with another strong female role model and resource, I sought out the help of the inimitable Awa Traoré to come and give motivational causeries on a variety of topics. Awa visited Yoonu Njub twice during my Peace Corps service, once during the 2012-2013 school year, and again during the 2014-2015 school year. A few weeks before the visit, I discussed possible conversation points with my counterpart and sent them to Awa so that she could prepare for her talk.
Awa touched on a number of different and important themes during each visit. Topics spanned education, its importance, and what girls' roles and responsibilities should be in their own education; relationships, comprehensive sex education, and rape/sexual abuse; communication skills; goal-setting and -achieving; and general self-esteem and self-confidence.
All in all, the causeries were a huge success, giving voice to important issues that the girls would face as their lives continued. Awa was a phenomenal addition to the trade school's training programs, and we hope to host her again soon!
By: Hattie Hill, St. Louis CED Volunteer (RPCV)
Where in the World is Awa?
19