We have been looking forward to this day for a long time. On 20 January 2024, we opened our centre to the public and celebrated the topping-out ceremony and inauguration all in one with the mayor, priests and interested parties from Bersingou. Most of the buildings are finished and in operation, only a guard house, an office and flats for guests are still outstanding – the garden also needs to be laid out.
As some of our pupils are Christians, we invited two Islamic and two Christian priests. It was great to see how much mutual respect the believers showed each other and listened to the words of the priests – they were words of congratulations, recognition, encouragement and blessing.
What was particularly nice was that the day after, we received a number of enquiries from parents in the village asking if we could also take in their children. Of course, we were very honoured! It was always important to us not to be perceived as a UFO that has landed in the African hinterland and is building some kind of development project behind walls. We want to be part of society – open, approachable, transparent.
The opening ceremony was also the starting signal for the training of the trainers from Senegal. They will spend several weeks with us in Benin to familiarise themselves with our way of working and teaching – before starting to set up their own production facility in Diourbel in May.
At the inauguration party for our centre, our trainers and trainees got talking to the mayor, priests and residents of the village.