Serendipity in Senegal

Serendipity  - it’s a lovely sing-song word isn’t it?  I’ve never used it before and this week I’ve had two occasions – I will tell you about the Senegalese serendipity as I’m here and I’m still aglow with it.

I’m in Senegal as in two days I will be running a training workshop (not related to child domestic work).   Last week I started emailing various people I know in Senegal to see if, while I was here, I could meet up with anyone that works with child domestic workers.  It was all a bit last minute and I knew I’d have to squeeze any meetings into my spare time here and I’d also have to get by on my very limited French (tres tres mal) so I didn’t hold out much hope of actually being able to do this. But then serendipity struck.

I discovered that, at the same time as my training workshop and in the same town (I’m in Thies, not Dakar the capital) there happened to be a meeting of the African Movement of Working Children.  A movement that was set up by child domestic workers 7 years ago – although now includes many different kinds of working children.  So, this afternoon I met this extraordinary group of 20 young people from 20 different African countries.  They were deep in discussion about a Memorandum of Understanding they needed to agree on for financial accountability purposes.  It was serious stuff.  It was hot and it was slow (because of the need of translation).  Many of the children were getting frustrated at points or bored or annoyed.  But then something was said with such passion by one of the group that the energy was pumping through them all again.  I sat with the English speaking representatives so that I could hear the translation.  And I was soooooo excited just to be there. 

This morning I’d been with about 40 adults (who I’ll be delivering training to in 2 days – on children’s participation).  It was quite a formal, slow meeting (in French).  This afternoon I was with children in, ironically enough, a very similar discussion.  But to be part of a discussion where the children were the decision-makers calling on the adults (who sat around the outside of the group to explain or support or translate) was just fantastic.  I felt very privileged to be a part of it for an hour or two.  And it was wonderful to speak in English to some of the young people – I very rarely get to do this – in all the participative work I’ve done with young people (outside the UK) I’ve had the added barrier of language.

I’m hoping to sneak away again from my ‘work’ here and speak to the young people’s movement about campaigning together on child domestic work.  I had a chance to introduce myself today but would love to find out if, in the future, they’d be interested in campaigning on this issue.

So, I’m a happy chicken, Senegalese serendipity is intoxicating….even if I’m being eaten alive by mosquitos as I write this!