Education and sport support

Project origins

Education is a universally recognized right, as signed in Article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR 1948) and reiterated in Article 13 "Right to education for all" of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights of the 'UN (ICESCR 1966).

According to recent statistics released by UNESCO annually about 59'000'000 of school-age children do not have access to a basic education program and of these more than 30'000'000 live in the sub-Saharan Africa region. In this type of context the possibility of access to education is not the only problem, the lack and inadequacy of the school infrastructures added to the insufficient availability of qualified teachers in fact seriously affect the quality of teaching and substantial services.

In Togo, education is compulsory from 6 to 12 years, despite this the literacy rate is only 63%, with a highly heterogeneous distribution characterized by significant inequalities related mainly to gender and geo-location. Male literacy stands at 77.4% while the female literacy at 49.9%, the Lomé region sees a rate of 93% unlike the Savane region, in the north of the country, where the literacy rate is only 20%. The average number of students per class is higher than 46 units but in the structures of the northern regions the classes are commonly composed of 80-100 students per teacher.

The accessibility and the quality of education are at the base of the social, economic and political development of a country and in the perspective of development cooperation the priority objective of this project is to support this fundamental process in a constant and different way.

Project Description

In the village of Lotogou there are two elementary schools, one private (École de l'église cattolique) and one public (Ècole primaire de Bargkok) together with a high school (Lycée de Lotogou) which covers the needs of the whole canton approximately 15,000 inhabitants.

The reality of the three existing school structures is closely linked to the Ticinese solidarity, in fact under the coordination of Jean Lalli Kombatè in 2001 through private funding the Ecole cattolique received as a donation 90 school desks still in use, in 2002 the Lyceum thanks the support of the Margherita Association and the municipality of Bioggio was equipped with a library while in 2009 the construction of the École de Bargkok was financed by the Friends of Father Mantovani, which is based in Lugano.

The conditions in which these structures operate fully reflect the difficulties related to the type of context described, just think that the Lyceum houses more than a thousand students divided into 12 classes while the primary school of Bargkok has 5 teachers and a director for about 500 students.

Since its foundation the IF Association has undertaken a close collaboration with the three institutes supporting them through donations of educational and sports material, in particular pens, balls and t-shirts. The interpersonal bond built up over time with the teaching staff ensures the possibility of monitoring the development of the various activities and of jointly identifying the priorities in view of future interventions in the context of development cooperation.

Expected and reached results

The relationship of trust and respect created progressively with the students and teachers of the structures in question is today one of the most positive realities of the work of the IF Association and fuels the motivation to intensify the efforts in the direction of a continuous collaboration that will certainly lead to elaboration of further projects with the aim of encouraging the development and harmonious growth of future generations.