YovoTogo Diary-2017-5

Classé dans : Dons, English, Evénements, Photos, Projets, YovoTogo | 0

Thursday October 26, 2017

This is a very busy day, starting with a preparatory meeting with the Oti’s prefect, Mister Ouadja, who will preside the inaugural ceremony of 2 computer rooms, which are planned for today. Mister deputy Bankani also honored us with his presence. It is important and pleasant for us to witness the support and the commitment to our projects of the local authorities, be they elected representatives, secondary or technical school inspectors, traditional leaders, representatives from the parents associations, representatives of the Internal Security Forces, police and gendarme officers.

This morning we are at the orphanage called SED-TOGO, Professional and Social Nogbzedji Center in Mango, a nice structure which complements the professional education in sewing, hairdressing and embroidery, with computer trainings open to everybody, and a cyberspace comprising 5 computers, which is also a income source for this institution.

In the afternoon we travel to Gando for the official opening of its high school computer room. The road to this village is difficult and tiresome, and we should thank again our friend Yobé Koumbouni, president of JUMP Lab’Orione and member of the Tandjouaré-Dapaong Rotary Club, for lending us his comfortable air-conditioned four-wheel drive car which makes us autonomous for the travels. A couple of small anecdotes : the military and gendarme officers at the Dapaong entry check point, instead of controlling us, rather ask us what is the program of the day, and also today we had the opportunity to eat a dish a varan meat, which has a pleasant taste of tuna very popular with the local villagers. In the evening we share with the disabled teenagers of the center the diner that they did prepare themselves. They used that occasion to thank us for the rehabilitation of their lavatories, the funding of a fridge and a TV set, currently being installed.

Friday October 27, 2017

This morning we hand over 2.000 collected eyeglasses to Georges MOUTORE, the Secretary-General of the Dapaong Caritas OCDI. Then together with Martine, the spouse of Arsène from the Rotary Club, we travel to Cinkassé, a town in the extreme north of the country at the border with the Burkina Faso, to open the 11th computer training room within a three years time frame. Before the handover ceremony, Patrick has the opportunity to present our new FabLab-OrthoLab project, project hosted within the CRETFP structure, to the prefect Mr LAGBANDE Issaka, by showing in his office a couple of video clips, the first one being a promotion video by Lilo, and the other one a presentation of the “Scarlette3D” printer of Fançois Fabre, our partner in the Montpellier FabLab.

As usual all the responsible persons are present. After the different speeches, the students perform a sketch about the advent of the computer age, and then two other groups perform traditional dances. A meal shared by everybody is served in one of the high-school class room, converted for the occasion, and we had a little surprise when going back to our car, on which several “Tanks” were written with a finger on the dusty body. In the evening we are invited to the birthday diner of Odette, a nursing Sister of the Don Orione Center, which takes place at the Mom Marguerite Residence, exactly were, 40 years ago, Marie-Paule’s aunt created from scratch this center for disabled children. This was the perfect opportunity to meet with her friends, among which some Dominican Brothers from Ploërmel, teachers for the most part assigned in Togo, Benin and Ivory Coast, which were visiting Dapaong for a working session.

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 friends : https://www.yovotogo.fr/nos-voyages-solidaires/2017/