Mothers of our Project
HCMS-CEME is a French non profit organization operating in the section Zone Sonatel of the city of Mbour in Senegal, since 1999 to help handicapped youth in their health care & studies.
In 2006 HCMS-CEME along with the Italian sister association FAI in SENEGAL also created by Elena Malagodi signed a Partnership Agreement with the Commune of Mbour and the National Education Inspectorate for the Department of Mbour “to facilitate the construction of a Municipal Pre-School education centre for 200 children” on a municipal 2.500 sq meters plot in the Mbour Section Zone Sonatel with the following objectives:
This social programme will cost about 30.000 $ a year during the first 3-4 years. Our goal is to give independence to the mothers at the end of this starting period.
During the first 6 month of 2008, thanks to the grant allocated to this project by the French Embassy in Dakar, the Region Ile de France, the French association Enfance et Partage, the “Fondation Orange” & many friends in Italy, France & the USA we have built a school composed by a building with 4 class-rooms, for 200 children aged 3 to 6 and a “Mother’s Building” with a workshop for sewing and dye-works, a kitchen, a large meeting hall, the administration’s office, two storehouses as well as a building with hygienic facilities for the children and the adults and the house of the school guardian and his family.
The teaching staff will be provided by the National Education Department, the other employees will be hired by the City Hall, which will own the premises. Our association will carry out the social programme.
French is the official language in Senegal while the language spoken by the magiority of the families is the Wolof. The first contact with the French language is usually in the Pre-Schools private and very expensive they are absolutely inaccessible to the poor families.
The primary school has been opened in October 2009.
The school has become a Groupe Scolaire Natangué for 350 children. In the fall of 2012 there will be 500 children at Natangué . . This achievement has been made possible by the generous contribution of the Fondation Orange, France and the Enfance et Partage association.
Zone Sonatel is a section of Mbour grown too fast, reaching 15 000 inhabitants in less than 10 years, with almost no infrastructures. Our school, with the social programme for the mothers and their close implication with the education of their children constitutes a real contribution to the wellbeing of the families in this section of the city. In January 2009 we created the cooperative Women of Natangué (GIE Djeeguenu Natangué) to sustain micro projects leading to economic independence. In February 2010 The GIE started a project of organic farming on a plot of land donated by the Regione Lazio, Italie and has built a neighbourhood shop to sell cereals.
In August 2009 our association changes its name from HCMS-CEME to Natangué Senegal.
Natangué in wolof means blossom, development and prosperity.