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BENIN / EDUCATION
STORY: BENIN / EDUCATION
TRT: 2:37
SOURCE: UNICEF
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH/ FRENCH/ BAATONUM/ NATS
DATELINE: DECEMBER 2009 BEMBÉRÉKÉ, BENIN
1. Wide shot, women mixing gari, made from cassava grain
2. Med shot, woman sifting grain
3. Close up, Tamou Kpageno, mother of 10 children
4. Med shot, Tamou sifting grain
5. SOUNDBITE (Baatonum) Tamou Kpageno, Farmer:
“We women organize ourselves to make money to send our children to school. I hope my children will be good teachers, or good policemen, and that some of them even travel and become successful.”
6. Med shot, Tamou Kpageno sifting grain
7. Close up, grain coming through sieve
8. Tilt up, schoolgirl tying belt and dancing
9. Close up, schoolgirls clapping and singing
10. Close up, schoolgirls
11. Close up, hands of school children playing with educational toy
12. Med shot, boy completes toy construction
13. Pan right, teacher helping students to school children
14. SOUNDBITE (French) Saka Jonas, Bembéréké School Headmaster:
“Here in Benin, most of the parents are uneducated and don’t know how to read and write but they want to know how the child is performing in school. With the help of this form, we have a very close relationship with the parent.”
15. Wide shot, school children clapping and singing outside
16. Close up, school children’s feet walking on road
17. Wide shot, school children entering classroom
18. Med shot, women dancing in circle
19. Tilt down, Elaire Gama, a “big sister” holds hands of two small children on walk to school
20. Pan left, Teacher and children with mentors enter school
21. SOUNDBITE (French) Elaire Gama, Big Sister Volunteer:
“When I have finished washing, I check if my girls have finished washing. If they have, we go to school together. The other students respect us and they look up to us as if we were teachers.”
22. Wide shot, school children outside school
23. Wide shot, children entering school
24. Med shot, teacher writing on board
25. Close up, boy writing on tablet during school lesson
26. Wide shot, school children listening to teacher during lesson
27. Med shot, school children hold up writing examples on chalk boards
28. Wide shot, women singing and clapping
The mothers of Bembéréké village in northern Benin come together to make gari from the staple cassava.
The crunchy and popular snack that these women make feeds their children and is also sold to raise money for the local school fund.
The fund, first started in 1994 by the Ministry of Education and with ongoing support from UNICEF, pays for a crèche teacher and built a new classroom at the primary school.
Tamou Kpageno, a farmer, is mother of five children under ten-years-old. The community-supported school allows her to send her preschoolers to school along with her older children, while she works in the fields.
SOUNDBITE (Baatonum) Tamou Kpageno, Farmer:
“We women organize ourselves to make money to send our children to school. I hope my children will be good teachers, or good policemen, and that some of them even travel and become successful.”
Bembéréké School shows how parents, teachers and government can ally with partners to overcome many of the barriers that keep children, especially girls, out of school.
The headmaster, Saka Jonas, has been at helm for eight years. In that time he has won the trust of the community and they have rewarded him with a new house and the promise of a motorbike. This is hefty bonus in a country where teacher’s salaries are low and conditions make it hard to retain qualified teachers.
SOUNDBITE (French) Saka Jonas, Bembéréké School Headmaster:
“Here in Benin, most of the parents are uneducated and don’t know how to read and write but they want to know how the child is performing in school. With the help of this form, we have a very close relationship with the parent.”
A presidential decree in 2006 made primary school free, allied with a campaign to promote girls education, have realized a massive increase of enrolment for girls from 35 per cent in 1990 to 84 per cent in 2005.
There are other creative schemes to keep girls in school. Older girls like eleven year old Elaire Gama
volunteer to be a Big Sister, and early every morning each one fetches her three younger village “sisters”. The older girls have taken on the responsibility to safely bring the youngsters to school.
SOUNDBITE (French) Elaire Gama, Big Sister Volunteer:
“When I have finished washing, I check if my girls have finished washing. If they have, we go to school together. The other students respect us and they look up to us as if we were teachers.”
Bembéréké primary school benefits from a community-led initiative, and has demonstrated the success of involving everyone - from the Mayor to children. The efforts to educate parents on the importance of schooling means there are now more girls in school than boys.
The challenge, however, continues; currently only one out of two of these children will complete primary school.
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