this woman’s work

I got a note in my email the other day:

I’m a freelance journalist based in West Africa, and my friend, Marie-Suzanne, a fantastically awesome 21-year-old, needs some help. In a nutshell, she’d become dismayed over the number of teenagers and young women having unplanned pregnancies. Many of whom were (not so coincidentally) giving birth 9 months or so after her village’s big summer festival in mid-August. She decided to do something about it: last year, she organized and ran a safe-sex workshop during the festival. She invited NGO workers to give informed talks and local musicians who wrote rap songs about the topic; she distributed condoms (for men and women); and she opened an important dialogue in a place where people often don’t like to talk about difficult truths.

You can read about how it all went down on my blog: http://noames.blogspot.com/2007/10/marie-suzanne-schools-mont-rolland.html. She got a great reaction, and this year, the village priest practically demanded a second edition. He reserved her the meeting room for the height of the festival, and is helping spread the word so even more kids show up. For her part, Marie-Suzanne is determined to do an even better workshop, including showing short films written by other African teens about sex and AIDS, writing and staging skits with her village cohort, and more music, more discussion, and more free birth control.

But she needs help: last year the project cost the equivalent of about $200. This year, she needs a bit more (and the dollar is worth a lot less). I sent out a plea for help on my blog and that of a couple friends, and people responded extremely generously. But since they already gave last year, I thought I might widen the net a little bit this year.

I think it’s a fantastic project, and if your readers were interested in chipping in even a few dollars, it could go a long way to helping Marie-Suzanne continue her quest. They can send it to me via paypal at naomims (at) google’s email service (just pretend you’re paying for a good, because otherwise paypal charges weird taxes and fees).

I’m including a letter Marie-Suzanne wrote last year (which I’ve translated from French), when she approached some local NGOs for help. They were able to provide people to talk about the issues, but no funding. Same deal this year.

My name is Marie-Suzanne Seck. I live in Mont Rolland, a village in the Thies region of Senegal. I am twenty years old.

I have found that the girls in my village are not very aware of AIDS and early pregnancy. I want to do a workshop for this in August, because all the young people are there for a festival. I am writing to ask for help.

In my village, I know 15-year-old girls who have gotten pregnant. At fifteen, you have many boyfriends and you do not know which one got you pregnant. If you say to one that it was him, he will say it wasn’t me. If you say to another, he’ll say it wasn’t me. And then you will be obligated to raise the baby on your own. Sometimes the family understands, sometimes they don’t.

As for AIDS, I had the idea because we did an anti-AIDS workshop one time in Mont Rolland for that, and I thought to myself that we should organize many to help young people and speak to them about illnesses.

For the activities, I would like, first of all, that the young people discuss together. Afterwards, I want to have two skits, one for AIDS, one for youth pregnancy. After that, we will pose questions, and if someone gets it right, we will give them a present (for example, a condom, or a ticket for a dance night that we are organizing that night). We will also have some singers. I have asked a friend to write two songs : one for AIDS, one for youth pregnancy.

The evening, I want to have a dance party for the young people to encourage them to come. It will be free for everyone who came for the day’s activities. If someone else would like to come, they will have to pay 500 CFA (about $1).

I have already reserved the hall and I have started to organize the details. But I don’t have enough money to do it all. I have compiled a budget, and in all, the workshop and party will cost about $200. I hope that you could help.

Thanks for your understanding.

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