Posts in category: news

We are closing the financial year 2024 and, once again, we have added another year to Foundawtion’s journey. That makes nine years already! Here you can download our Activity Report 2024

It seems like yesterday when a group of friends embarked on this beautiful adventure, which would never have been possible without the magnificent community that we have formed. From the small contributions of those who trust in our work to the most prominent donors, including our great friend Teknia, whose support represents more than 70% of the resources that make this work possible.

In 2022 we had the great honour of receiving the Aga Khan Award in recognition of our CEM Kamanar project in Thionck Essyl, a recognition that filled us with pride and gratitude. Last October, the celebration was organised in Thionck Essyl to honour the local efforts that made it possible.
It was impressive, and we had the opportunity to host a representation of the award committee members on that occasion, who visited the site and saw first-hand the impact of our work. This visit was a very special moment and reaffirmed our commitment to continue fighting for the education and wellbeing of children in the region.

Every year, more and more volunteers join us, forming a talented team of architects, quantity surveyors, economists and other professionals, enthusiastic people who work with daily effort and perseverance to make sustainable projects a reality.

sustainable projects. Their generosity and dedication are at the heart of it all. Special mention must be made of those who travel temporarily to Senegal and Namibia to monitor and manage the works; their work allows us to guarantee the quality and success of the projects.

We would like to emphasise that we allocate only human and material resources to the projects. We will continue to have a team dedicated to the administration and management of the Foundation, and we are very proud of this, as it allows us to maximise the impact of each of the resources invested.

This is who we are and how we are organised. We firmly believe that honesty, transparency and rigour are essential requirements to responsibly manage the resources that, for yet another year, you have entrusted to us. Thank you for this trust; we are truly proud to deserve it.

With the same strength with which we began this journey, but with many more lessons learned, we face our tenth anniversary. This year, we will complete the construction of the reception centre in Namibia, and sixty little smiles will give us the strength to continue working for education and for the neediest children.

A big hug.

David García, President

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.”

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

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