Senegal Service Learning Project

An exploratory trip in the summer of 2011 marked the beginning of a 3 year commitment between Lick-Wilmerding, Drew School and the village of Santhiou Mame Gor. Like our school’s 3-year interaction with the village of Keur Sadaro just a few summers before, the goal is to utilize our Lick students' technical skills to do something meaningful for a remote rural village. The experience, however, is not unidirectional; each student is paired with a family, with which they build a surprisingly deep relationship. The interaction is deep and both parties come out with a changed perspective toward many aspects of life and globalization. At the request of Santhiou Mam Gor, then main project is a student designed 2-room school building collaboratively built with the village. Together we moved bricks, mixed mortar, attached sheet metal roofing, cut rebar, finished desks, painted and put a variety of hands on skills to work along side the people of the village. The result has allowed young children, who might otherwise not have access to any school, to engage in a basic human right we sometimes take for granted: Education. This project is still in progress and may last into the summer of 2015.