Shelter home ATAX
Since October 2014 Afractie supports the brand new shelter home ATAX for children in poverty/deprivation (STOP poverty) and street children (STOP begging).
ATAX represents And Taxawu Xaleyi or “helping children together”. The shelter is open from Monday to Friday and is run by a staff of 5 employees. ATAX puts focus on education and increasing educational opportunities for the children. We also help in accommodating a number of primary needs.
Efforts
- Day care
ATAX offers both target groups breakfast, lunch and a snack paying attention to offer a variation of food with plenty of vegetables. ATAX also provides basic medical care and hygienic facilities.
Local employees will focus on good behaviour, respect towards one another and hygiene. A strict rule is checking if everyone has washed their hands before a meal. Besides the educational package ATAX organises free-time activities like going to the beach.
- Nursery school for children in poverty/deprivation
Each morning 27 toddlers will be taught about the class structure, a basic knowledge of French and other basic skills to prepare them for school and to smoothen the transition to the first school year. Through this advantage ATAX aims to increase their chances.
- Homework assistance and tutoring for children in poverty/deprivation
In the afternoon the toddlers will go home and the classroom will be set up to accommodate homework assistance and tutoring for primary/grammar school children. Due to the large group of students at public school, education quality is not always optimal and children are at risk of lagging behind. To battle this disadvantage we decided to support them after school hours.
- Education for street children (also known as talibé-children)
ATAX will provide education to street children as far as possible. Since the workers are still in start-up phase, introductions and negotiations with the marabouts are ongoing. However, we have succeeded in organising weekly classes in one of the local daara’s from week one.
Our workers
The ATAX team consists of five motivated workers: a coordinator who is also a former teacher, two counsellors, a chef and a cleaning person.
At their own initiative and out of hours, they organised a training programme over several days to increase the capacity of child care. The first part of the training took place on Saturday 15 November 2014. An education coach will be involved to plan the curriculum for 2015-2016.
Funding
In the beginning Afractie will send ATAX a monthly budget to cover all operations. We have agreed to evaluate and perhaps adjust the monthly budget to accommodate the needs of the moment. It is our intention to decrease the budget over time in order to stimulate the ATAX team to raise their own funds and resources. In the long run we will provide a smooth transition to fund clearly marked partial financings.