73e45dfd-9d97-4640-8383-9d48335e7328

Fun workshop: crafts, creativity and laughter.

A workshop by Miriam Alonso & Cristina Gusano.

“During the week of April 14, we taught a craft workshop to 2 classes of the Tionk Essil school where each day was dedicated to an activity that we did with the first class and replicated with the second class, after recess.

The children became familiar with the different tools and accessories we used to compose our crafts. They really enjoyed learning the different techniques.

Dedicating a space to games and creativity is always a good bet, especially with pre-teen children whose main interests are having fun, interacting with their peers and gradually defining their personality through creations.”

13_6392

“Illustrated recipe book” workshop with women from Thionck Essyl.

In April, a group of artists travelled to Thionck Essyl with Javi Royo to give a series of artistic workshops at CEM Kamanar.

One of them was the workshop ‘Illustrated cooking recipes’ given by Florence Cairo, visual artist.

The aim of the workshop was to provide the participants with the visual elements necessary to understand, through simple drawings, illustrations and pictograms, the basics of reproducing, transmitting and copying Senegalese family cooking recipes.

The group consisted of 16 students, all women of legal age who are members of the Thionck Essyl Women’s Association. They are all mothers, and the

majority of them also assume the main responsibility for the household.

Some have jobs in the community – in the community garden, salt pans, cleaning, market stalls or cooking for the camps – while others work with their husbands in various enterprises, or plan to start a small “restaurant”, which is actually a soup kitchen.

“I believe that this workshop has been a human experience that far exceeded artistic expectations, and became an intimate, complicit and happy moment that illuminated the way for all of us”. Flor

Photos by Jordi García

IMG-20250413-WA0029

Namaqua Kalahari Children’s Hope construction progresses

Visit to Bajankusoor, the training school we are building in Thionck Essyl, Senegal. The construction works of the buildings destined to earth workshop, bathrooms, wood workshop, food workshop and administration continue to progress.

Once again, we would like to thank the volunteers who are directing the work and our patron TEKNIA, as well as all the people whose contributions make this project possible.

Arquitectura Dawoffice

WhatsApp Image 2025-02-24 at 14.44.14.FOUNDAWTION NAMIBIA

Final stage of Namaqua Kalahari Children’s Hope construction

The construction in Gochas (Hardap, Namibia, at the foot of the Kalahari desert) of a home for abused, orphaned and unprotected children is in its final phase. A dignified, welcoming and inspiring roof. Where, as seeds, sixty girls and boys, between six and fourteen years old, will finally feel protected, safe and empowered: ready to grow.

Thanks to all of you who make this possible.

Arquitectura Dawoffice

obra namibia junio 24 Image 2024-06-20 at 20.46.20

Namaqua Kalahari Children’s Hope

Nous construisons un bâtiment pour que 60 enfants aient une maison où ils pourront manger, dormir, jouer et étudier, loin des abus, du harcèlement et même des viols dont ils sont régulièrement victimes.

CAMPUS BASKET DANI OSUL 4

Second basketball camp held at Thionck Essyl

Last June 22 Dani Osul and Marta Orrutia traveled to Thionck Essyl to carry out the second basketball camp.

We took with us 20 basketballs, 30 kits designed by Javi Royo (15 male and 15 female), numbered from 1 to 15 and 40 pairs of used basketball shoes, donated by players of QBasket Sant Cugat, a basketball team from Sant Cugat del Vallés, which supports the project. This is possible thanks to solidarity activities carried out during the season.

This time we conducted the campus from a base, already established last year, and thanks to the collaboration of Sekou, our basketball coach in Thionck Essyl, with whom we have continuous communication to follow up the players.

The result again exceeded our expectations, as the athletes assimilated the concepts quickly. In addition, a special bond was created with many of them as it was our second year of campus at Thionck Essyl, as well as with coaches Sekou, Malic and Kalilou.

Since the first campus, the social mass of TBC i (Thionck Essyl Basket Club) has increased in the form of new players. Currently the club has approximately 100 athletes, ranging in age from 8 to 18 years old, of which 50% are girls. We are especially proud of this, as one of the objectives of the campus was the integration of women in sports.

We are already working on the third campus to be held from June 21 to 28, 2025. For which, we will need new material, such as balls, equipment, sneakers… says Dani Osul.

Nuevos arquitectos voluntarios Foundawtion

New volunteer architects

We welcome to Thionck Essyl the new team of volunteer architects who will be working until December on the construction of Bajankusoor, the future vocational school. Giuseppe Massacci + Sergio Guerri + María Tormo + Clara Fernández.


And we also welcome to Namibia Teresa de Miguel + Marta Parra, volunteer architects who will stay until December in Gochas managing the construction of Namaqua Kalahari Children’s Home, the shelter home for 60 children to live away from the mistreatment to which they are usually subjected.
Many thanks to all the volunteers for making our project possible!

 

cem kamanar abril 2022 premis fad internacional arquitectura

Annual Activity Report 2023

Annual Activity Report 2023

We closed the 2023 fiscal year with great excitement and two major projects underway. You will discover them in this Current Report.

As many of you know, Foundawtion is a small non-profit foundation:

  • The Board of Trustees is composed of eight friends who came together nine years ago to altruistically contribute their time, knowledge, and professional experience.
  • We are surrounded by magnificent volunteers; architects, quantity surveyors, and economists, who generously offer their expertise and free time to advance the projects with admirable constant supervision.
  • We add to this fantastic “human cocktail” volunteers who selflessly travel to oversee construction in Senegal and Namibia.

We want to emphasize that we only allocate human resources to the projects, not to the management of the Foundation. Specifically, two architects dedicate their workday to designing and monitoring the projects.

This is how we operate. It’s important to understand the inner workings of foundations to ensure greater transparency in the management of the resources we receive from our donors. We want nearly all of your contributions to go directly to funding the projects, not to covering the operational expenses of the foundation. The day we can’t maintain this rigor, we will need to reconsider our future.

As of now, thanks to all of you, Foundawtion is sailing smoothly and full speed ahead, without official aid, thanks to the generosity of our “captain” Teknia and an unparalleled crew. We expect a good journey this year as well.

Warm regards,

David García
President

Foto de Dani Osul(28)

Basket workshop at CEM Kamanar

The objective of this workshop was to promote sports in general and basketball in particular among the boys and girls of Cem Kamanar in Thionk Essyl. Learn basic concepts of basketball such as dribbling, passing, shooting a basket, making a tackle, hand changes, one on one… as well as understanding some basic rules and positively developing the educational values ​​of this sport. The camp was held successfully, and the boys and girls improved day after day, applying the concepts shown by the volunteers Without a doubt, a great experience for everyone.

Dani Osul, head of the workshop.

CEM KAMANAR-DAW OFFICE- PHOTO Noemí de la Peña 14

CEM Kamanar winner of the Aga Khan Architecture Award 2022

We are very proud to announce that our CEM Kamanar school has received one of the most prestigious and well-endowed international architecture awards: the Aga Khan Award for Architecture in the 2020-2022 cycle.

A recognition of the work of dawoffice and of all the workers, collaborators, private donors and companies and volunteers of Foundawtion, as well as, of course, the community of Thionck Essyl, indispensable collaborator.

As you know, CEM Kamanar is a secondary school for 480 students that opened in October 2019. It was designed to solve the saturation of the only school that existed in the rural town of Thionck Essyl, in the Ziguinchor region, south of Senegal.

The jury for this award, which will be presented on Saturday, October 29th in Muscat, in the sultanate of Oman, has awarded CEM Kamanar architecture among more than 463 projects from around the world for “addressing the multiple scales of urbanism, landscape, architecture and construction technologies with equal commitment and virtuosity”.

In the words of David García, founding architect of dawoffice and head of the project, it is “a unique project for the community of Thionck Essyl, which highlights the traditional construction with a result adapted to the climatic characteristics of the area, integrated into the landscape and that uses basic but effective solutions.” The school is built using local materials, such as compressed clay on site, to form an original geometry of vaults.

This prestigious award is promoted by The Aga Khan Development Network, dedicated to improving the quality of life of people, mainly in Asia and Africa, through a multifaceted approach to help communities become self-sufficient. The ultimate goal of these awards is to encourage architectural projects that address social aspirations and to have a comprehensive archive of referent projects – archnet.org.

In addition to the recent Aga Khan Award, the work was a finalist in the 2022 International FAD awards granted by the ArquinFAD association -Promotion of Arts and Design (FAD)- and deserved the opinion award.

From Foundawtion we want to congratulate the dawoffice team for their amazing work.

Thanks also to the invaluable support of our generous patron TEKNIA, essential for the construction of our projects.

Thanks to the Echebano Foundation and all the anonymous and altruistic donors of the Foundation, we can continue working, to the best of our ability, to have a better future.