Tuesday October 17, 2017
Intense and very busy day : in the morning visit to the children, then to the youth, all ready to go to school or college. It is a very special time when each face regains its name. We share some news and meet up again with Joseph the maintenance man and Richard the driver.
At nine o’clock in the morning, we are hosted by the Rotary Club of Tandjouaré Dapaong, to attend the yearly visit of their 209177-2018 Governor, the Nigerian doctor Ari Toubo IBRAHIMA.
The key link between YovoTogo and the Rotary Club of Tandjouaré Dapaong is precisely the project, initiated in 2014, to implement several training rooms equipped with refurbished computers running under Emmabuntüs. The Jump Lab Orione Rotarians (United Youth for a Progressing World) are the Togolese pillars supporting this project, which, this year, will result in the opening of the 12th training room equipped with 20 computers within the social and educational structures of the Savannah Region. Next year, and within the Dapaong C.R.E.T.F.P. (Regional College for Technical Education and Professional Training) premises, an extension of this project aims at the implementation of a FabLab and an Ortholab in order to produce 3D printed parts for the orthopedic workshop of Bombouaka.
The title of this project is : “Ortholab-Dapaong : the software libre serving the youth to alleviate the disabilities in North Togo”. Claude, in personal capacity and as member of the Rotary Club of La Roche sur Yon, supports a project to provide documents, furnitures, and a drinking water well to four isolated and deprived elementary schools.
The afternoon concluded with a calabash of “Tchapalo” (local beer), another discovery for Patrick, who brilliantly passed the test.
Wednesday October 18, 2017
We pay a visit to the families of children with disabilities, which are sponsored trough the association. These bush tours are essential during our stay here, and are an opportunity to remember the reality of the life for this population and to create human ties beyond the financial aspect. The families feel pride to be visited by people coming from very far away, and they say that, and also that their disabled child feels then valued by the neighborhood instead of being marginalized more than often.
As other times, Father Adam and Parfait, the sociologist of the center, who are with us during this journey, discover a 8 years old deaf and dumb child, who does not walk since 3 years after some crisis. The parents are called in the center for a medical consultation, since after further examination it looks like his walking rehabilitation potential is still preserved. Here we clearly see the tough job of the Don Orione center : they just don’t wait for the children and their parents to knock at the door. And one more time we can see that the lack of financial resources confines families inside their problems.
To support the Center also means helping all the disable children of the North Togo and the surrounding areas. To sponsor a child simply boils down to replace the family by providing a financial support which allows the Center to sustain and even amplify its efforts.
The afternoon was festive since Stéphane, the ventriloquist magician, is with us for few days with the goal to offer a show to the children of the Center and those attending the elementary school and the college. Around 500 of them did respond to the invitation, and this was for them a truly joyful experience, and some were even acting in some tricks of the show.
Many thanks Stéphane for your generous gesture of solidarity.
The original French post of this article can be found here, courtesy of our friend Ordinosor, which was itself written after the diary of the 2017 solidarity journey of our YovoTogo friends : https://www.yovotogo.fr/nos-voyages-solidaires/2017/