Montana Bass ’18 Teaching, Fundraising in Dakar, Senegal

 Montana Bass ’18 and Toni Burdick, a student at Hamilton College, have joined forces while studying abroad in Senegal. The students have launched a fundraising campaign to bring sanitary equipment and running water to Ker Xaleyi, a primary school in Guinaw Rails Sud, Pikine, Dakar, where both students are intern teachers this semester.

Pikine resident Abdoulaye Ba founded Ker Xaleyi in 2012 to combat poverty and illiteracy. Many Pikine students cannot afford public schools and those that do face inadequate learning conditions. Many public schools in Pikine average 90 students per classroom and 1,000 students per bathroom. Of those students, 56 percent do not graduate elementary school.

For half the price of public schools, Ker Xaleyi school offers a safe place for students to gain a bilingual education from Senegalese volunteer teachers and international interns such as Bass and Burdick, who are working with more than 150 students. Unfortunately, the school currently lacks funding for basic resources. Bass invites the CC community to help them raise funds that will bring two toilets and running water to Ker Xaleyi in the Spring 2017, ensuring safer, more structured school days.