Today I had my first formation (workshop). It was done with the girls I previously mentioned I’ll be working with. The girls range from 13-19. There are 30 girls, around 20 are married and most of them have kids. They come to this center to learn Pullar alphabets and get some kind of vocational training.
I will be helping them with various trainings. So today, I had a workshop on creating lekki Bowdi (literally means mosquito medicine), so mosquito repellant. I made this one out of pocket. It was really cheap cost me about two dollars and the price can be cheaper. I wanted the girls to try it, so they see that it works. After they test it for themselves and they see it works, they in turn can make it for their households and even make it to sell in their villages. People here know the effects of mosquitoes and are aware of malaria and are scared of it. SOOOO this is a cheap way for them to prevent malaria and the future heartaches of doctor bills or even death, which mostly is the result as people cannot afford the medications.
The repellant is made out of Neem leaves, a tree found all over Senegal. The leaves are boiled then soap broken into pieces and old are added. This turns into a nice lotion that can even be used as lotion, quite moisturizing. It does not even have a bad order. BUT I have an idea. I want to turn this into a business; I’m really trying to sell it to a women’s’ group, to make different scents. Various others leaves can be boiled, or perfume added, or using scenting soaps that can offer a variety of smells. This does not decrease the effects of the Neem. Anyways I’ll keep you posted on that.
It was a major hit with the class; their teacher had told them the day before about it, its effects and all that. But I stressed it on them too, telling them to use on their kids and all that. SO I’ll go back and see what they thought of it and if they would be willing to make it at their homes for personal use OR PROFIT.
I’m also going to start business classes with the girls. This will start when the books I’ve ordered arrived. I’m trying to do projects t that would be suitable after I live and it can be continued without the help of my replacement.
So I’m going to work with their teacher, so she can teach the classes. They have manuals, that I would be using too so it should be easy.
And on that note it seems women in the villages are more serious and have their act together than the women in the cities. Like this women’s group I met today that I may just end up working with because I like their motivation. One of the ladies, whom is well off, offered to do micro financing for the women, instead of them going to micro financing institutions, with outrageous costs. All the women, I’m guessing uneducated pay their dues on time. This takes me to a point, as I was doing interviews with the micro financing institutions in my town, most said they liked women in the villages because they pay on time and are more useful with the money than the women in my city. They say, they are sometimes even reluctant to lend money in my city.
Then I was suppose to have a meeting with the women group in my city, PEOPLE DID NOT SHOW UP ON TIME… and I was already 30mintues late because I knew that one going to happen.
SO I left that meeting and went to another. Were the women just stared fighting with each other as they did the last time, when the same such meeting was conveyed.
That’s my day in a nutshell.. HOW Was Yours?
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