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Name: Jean BASSENE, National General Secretary
Address: YMCA – Sénégal, BP:4152 Dakar Senegal Type of Organization: Non-profit; Local Organization
Is organized under the laws of the recipient country; Has its principal place of business in the recipient country;
Is majority owned by individuals who are citizens or lawful permanent residents of the recipient country or be managed by a governing body, the majority of whom are
citizens or lawful permanent residents of a recipient country; and Is be controlled by a foreign entity or by an individual or individuals who are not
citizens or permanent residents of the recipient country.
Lead contact point: Jean BASSENE, YMCA Senegal, Tel: (221)8241385, (221)774010663
E-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]
Alternate Contact Point: Joseph Coly , YMCA SENEGAL
Tél: +221 33 824 13 85 Cell: +221 77 564 25 35, [email protected]
Name of the Project Manager: Alphonse Ndiaye
Focus of Technical Application: Teaching and Learning Materials
Signature of authorized representative of the applicant:
__________________________________________________
j Jean BASSENE, National General Secretary, YMCA – Sénégal,
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
RATIONALE:......................................................................................................................... 6
LOW COST SOLUTIONS: ....................................................................................................... 7
THEORY OF CHANGE: .......................................................................................................... 7
CHARACTERISTICS OF PARTICIPANTS:
TEAM PARTNERS: ............................................................................................................... 7
ROLES :................................................................................................................................. 8
CAPACITY: ........................................................................................................................... 8
SUSTAINABILITY: ................................................................................................................ 8
POTENTIAL FOR SUCCESS ACROSS MULTIPLE CONTEXTS: .............................................. 8
LINKAGE TO EDUCATION SYSTEM:..................................................................................... 9
SCALE &TARGETS: .............................................................................................................. 9
IMPLEMENTATION ACTIVITIES: .......................................................................................... 9
Training: ............................................................................................................................. 9
Puzzles: ............................................................................................................................ 10
Songs and Chants: .............................................................................................................. 10
Reading Sessions:............................................................................................................... 10
Daily Journaling:................................................................................................................ 10
Storytelling Circles: ............................................................................................................ 10
Joke-telling Sessions:.......................................................................................................... 10
Integrating Writing with Drawing: ........................................................................................ 10
Reading Competitions: ........................................................................................................ 10
Writing Competitions:......................................................................................................... 11
Engagement of Family and Community in Reading: ................................................................ 11
“Publishing-House in-a-Box”: Teaching and Learning Material Production: ............................... 11
Local Library Support: ........................................................................................................ 11
MANAGEMENT PLAN & APPROACH: ................................................................................. 11
DATA, MONITORING & EVALUATION: .............................................................................. 12
IMPLEMENTATION TIMELINE: HYVALL seeks to achieve the following objectives:................. 12
BUDGET: ............................................................................................................................ 13
SUPPORTING MATERIALS: .................................................................................................... 14
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THEORY OF CHANGE CHART................................................................................................ 15
GENDER ANALYSIS ............................................................................................................... 17
PAST PERFORMANCE BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION
MANAGEMENT STRUCTURE/ORGANIZATIONAL CHART
LETTER OF INTENT
COST APPLICATION
REQUIRED CERTIFICATIONS
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ACRONYM LIST
CBO-Community-based Organization
CESLY-Core Education Skills for Liberian Youth
EDC – Education Development Center
EGRA-Early Grade Reading Assessment
HYVALL- Harnessing Youth Volunteers as Literacy Leaders
IT- Information Technology
TIC- (French for Information and Communication Technologies)
MOE- Ministry of Education
NGO-Non-governmental organization
UNICEF-United Nations Children’s Fund
USAID- United States Agency for International Development
YMCA-Young Men’s Christian Association
REFERENCES
Eliot, Lise. What’s Going On in There: How the Brain and Mind Develop in the First Five Years of Life.
New York, NY, 1999.
Ministère de l’Éducation, de l’Alphabétisation et des Langues Nationales du Mali. “Temps reel
d’apprentissage.” Projet de recherche mene en collaboration avec la Direction Nationale de la Pedagogie,
la Direction Nationale de l’Education de base du MEALN et le Programme USAID/PHARE
Octobre 2010.
USAID CESLY. Assessment of the Impact of the USAID/CESLY Intervention on Teaching and Learning
in Liberian Schools, 2011.
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ABSTRACT
CONCEPT: In African environments where children spend few hours at school, where mastery of
reading in the early grades is rare, and where community and family culture of reading is minimal, the
HARNESSING YO UTH VO LUNTEERS AS LITERACY LEADERS (HYVALL) project proposes to inculcate a
culture of reading and increase children’s time on task in reading outside the classroom, by harnessing the
untapped potential of youth volunteers as literacy leaders in extracurricular reading activities. The project
will pilot the Read Right Now! reading strategy within the experiential, holistic learning environment of
day camps, community libraries and schools in Senegal, for later expansion into 22 additional Africa
YMCA country programs serving 7 million children. The project will cultivate a reading culture in
communities where family literacy and school involvement levels are low, will forge linkages between
school, home and community and will foster family and community involvement in children’s reading.
RATIONALE: With some countries spending only 15 -30% of school hours in actual learning, time spent
reading both during and after school class hours is minimal. 90% of Senegal’s schools lack libraries or
reading rooms. Low-income families have sporadic or no after-school supervision to encourage children’s
practice of reading, while better off children spend after-school time playing computer/video games.
Teachers are approached to provide tutoring classes but often resist, citing heavy workload or requesting
additional pay or incentives. An untapped resource exists in terms of harnessing youth volunteers to
spearhead tutoring. However, high quality, well–trained volunteers are needed, since those without
mastery of literacy themselves tend to replicate errors. The cadre of youth volunteers from YMCA are ripe
for training in an evidence-based approach to tutoring reading.
INNOVATION: Reading and writing is a vehicle, which any kind of content can drive. HYVALL
proposes to generate a passion and intrinsic motivation to read not just inside the classroom, but in
children’s daily lives, in their afterschool time, during weekends and evenings. HYVALL will increase
time-on-task hours in reading, by harnessing extracurricular programs and energies of youth volunteers.
TEACHING AND LEARNING MATERIALS: The creation of a replicable model, a Package for
Promoting Youth Voluntarism to Strengthen Reading among Children in the Early Grades will contain a
plethora of teaching, learning and training materials, built on an evidence-based approach to reading that
youth volunteers can use with children during extracurricular activities. Once crafted, this model and its
teaching/learning resources can be expanded across country programs and extracurricular activities.
OUTCOME: A core project deliverable will be the production of locally-produced, contextually-
appropriate, leveled reading materials to be distributed to local libraries in Senegal, as well as regionally
and internationally. HYVALL will produce increased reading outcomes among 6000 children in Senegal
and will foster a rich extracurricular environment that supports and sustains in-school reading
improvement. HYVALL builds tangible skills in promotion of reading among cadres of 300 youth
volunteers already committed to serving in communities. Beyond this, the development of a reading-
focused package of teaching and learning materials creates a platform through which reading-focused
voluntarism will be replicated across a large alliance of YMCAs, YWCAs, Boy Scouts, local clubs,
association, CBOs, NGOs, school teachers, and other child- and youth serving organizations.
SCALE: The Package for Promoting Youth Voluntarism to Strengthen Reading among Children in the
Early Grades will be piloted in YMCA’s Senegal country program, becoming part and parcel of ongoing
day camp programming. This package of teaching and learning materials will then be adopted by
extracurricular reading activities tied to YMCA extracurricular programs and primary schools across 22
country programs, who currently are reaching a total of 7 million children and youth.
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TECHNICAL APPLICATION: HARNESSING YO UTH VO LUNTEERS AS LITERACY LEADERS:
Creating a Replicable Model of Youth Voluntarism to Increase Reading Gains in Early Grades
CONCEPT: In African environments where children spend few hours at school, where mastery of
reading in the early grades is rare, and where community and family culture of reading is minimal, the
HARNESSING YOUTH VOLUNTEERS AS LITERACY LEADERS (HYVALL) project proposes to inculcate a
culture of reading and increase children’s time on task in reading outside the classroom, by harnessing the
untapped potential of youth volunteers as literacy leaders in extracurricular reading activities. The project
will pilot the Read Right Now! reading strategy within the experiential, holistic learning environment of
day camps, community libraries and schools in Senegal, for later expansion into 22 additional Africa
country programs using the Peer Review Mechanism developed by the Africa Alliance of YMCAs.
RESEARCH BASE ON A CRITICAL AND UNMET NEED: Studies show that children across
Africa spend few hours engaged in learning during school. Many schools operate on multiple shift,
exacerbating the lack of productive time spent in the classroom. Studies by Agha Khan in Mozambique
showed just 15% of the days in the academic calendar were used for reading and Malian research
demonstrated that on 29% of allotted school hours were used for learning (USAID Phare 2010). The early
child produces an average of 250,000 neurons per minute, but loses 20 million synapses per day if these
neural synapses are not activated through enriching experiences (Eliot, 1999). Significant time is lost
during crucial years of neurological development, resulting in children missing critical periods for
language development, as children’s brains are maximally capable of absorbing language until 6/7, at
which point brain’s capacity steadily declines until end of puberty. The critical period is therefore early in
the child’s life. Explicit reading instruction in-school is key for improving reading outcomes among
children and youth. The global thrust of new programs is injecting a renewed focus on reading into the
classroom environment, yet this which at best consumes 4-6 hours of a child’s day. However the
remaining 16-20 hours are underutilized during the time when children’s brains are expanding at a
phenomenal pace. The dearth of print-rich environments in African communities understimulates children
at the time when they most need exposure to language. Research on jointly implemented YMCA/EDC
culture of reading interventions in Liberia demonstrated, that when out-of-school interventions in culture
of reading supported in-school focus on reading, learners demonstrated greater interest in reading,
increased seeking of books at libraries, increased writing, improved fluency higher scores in reading
competitions, and overall demonstration of improved reading skills (USAID/CESLY, 2011).
RATIONALE: The African Alliance of YMCAs runs an ongoing program of “day camps” “summer
camps”, and clubs in which children and youth’s holistic development is stimulated. Children and youth
in these camps often learn cooperation, teamwork, and problem-solving through outdoors skills, sports and
other experiential learning opportunities. While children’s school experience is mainly “chalk and talk”
they learn how learning can be fun at camp. These camps are run by trained camp counselors who are seen
as role models by children exerting great influence on children through creative media of singing, dancing
and group games. A key opportunity exists to introduce reading in a way that generates excitement,
motivation and interest in learning using an evidence-based approach to reading combined. In addition,
the cooperative, collaborative environment of school break programs creates an opportunity for learners to
experience reading in a new and stimulating way, which serves to enhance synaptic development and
neural plasticity that contribute to reading skill development. Extracurricular activities through camps and
school club support, reinforce and even increase interest in and demand for reading in the in-school
environment- particularly when children take their confidence and zeal back into the formal system.
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LOW COST SOLUTIONS: HYVALL will develop a Package for Promoting Youth Voluntarism to
Strengthen Reading among children in the early grades. The use of volunteers will enable this package to
extend much farther than, if civil servants were paid wages or incentives for extracurricular reading
activities. In addition, integration into YMCA’s system has tremendous cost-share benefits in that YMCA,
as a local charity, is already covering running costs of: the camps, the payment of staff, the venue and a
number of other costs associated with running training which usually eat up a huge portion of the budget.
TECHNOLOGY: The YMCA is already operating TIC Enfants program where youth learn information
technology in IT centers. Their grades and reading progress are tracked to measure change due to
technology skills. This IT component is already integrated with day camp and library support
programming and will be integrated into HYVALL tutoring and reading strengthening activities, as well
as into local material production where youth will
use their IT skills to type, polish and layout the
reading materials they produce.
THEORY OF CHANGE: HYVALL’s theory of
change is that: YO UTH LITERACY LEADERS
VO LUNTEER IN EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES
FO R CHILDREN, RESULTING IN INCREAS ED
READING GAINS AMO NG CHILDREN,
REINFO RCING SCHOO L-BASED READING EFFO RTS
AND INFUSING ENTHUSIASM FO R READING
SUPPO RT AMO NG FAMILIES AND CO MMUNITIES .
The details of this Theory of Change are elaborated
in the annex. The EDC Read Right Now! model
will provide the foundation for evidence-based
approach to improving reading skills.
CHARACTERISTICS OF PARTICIPANTS:
HYVALL’s beneficiaries are children aged 6 to 13
years formal school students, beneficiaries of
YMCA programs and other partner associations
across Senegal. The majority of these children are
from underprivileged families, with limited access
to books or reading activities, outside the school environment. The illiteracy of parents, particularly in
rural areas and places is an additional restrictive factor to promoting a culture of the reading. The only
books children know are the ones they read in class; few and far between and only when pressed by
teacher supervision. In addition, UNICEF estimates that there are up to 100,000 child beggars in Senegal
(2004). The vast majority of these are Talibés, boys who study in Q’uranic schools and are used to earn
money on the street. Many of these boys are studying in religious school, but outside the reach of the
formal school system. HYVALL will also target these young boys as primary project participants.
TEAM PARTNERS: YMCA Senegal: YMCA Senegal is a non-political, nonprofit youth organization
established in Senegal in 1982. With over 2000 volunteers and staff, the YMCA serves 55,000 Senegalese
through grassroots programs, including formal and nonformal education, health, youth entrepreneurship,
literacy, leadership development, sports, international exchange, community service and work camps
implemented in its 9 local branches in 5 regions: Dakar, Thies, Kaolack, Saint Louis, and Ziguinchor.
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Africa Alliance of YMCAs: The Senegal YMCA is an affiliated member of the African Alliance of
YMCAs. The African Alliance serves to unite, create synergies, and share lessons learned across the 24
sister YMCAs on the African continent for the promotion of youth development.
The Education Development Center (EDC): EDC is a global non-profit organization that designs,
delivers and evaluates innovative programs and delivers high-quality education to the hardest-to-reach
places through systemic reform, teacher training, reading-focused initiatives, development of teaching and
learning materials, accelerated and nonformal basic education, girls’ education, distance education,
community mobilization among others. EDC has worked extensively across Africa, having implemented
education and health projects in a total of 80 countries for the last 53 years. In Senegal, Liberia, and other
African countries, YMCA and EDC have worked closely to implement in- and out-of-school culture of
reading activities, having built trusting relationships that serve as foundations of successful collaboration.
ROLES : YMCA as Lead Implementer will: design program; manage program implementation; scale up
training of youth volunteers; extend outreach into day camps, school clubs, community libraries & CBOs.
Africa Alliance of YMCA will: provide monitoring /evaluation services and assist in scaling and
replicating model to extend the Package of Youth Voluntarism to Strengthen Reading into sister YMCAs.
EDC, as supportive technical assistance, will: assist YMCA in technical design, conduct baseline and
endline evaluation, conduct training of trainers, develop package on Youth Voluntarism for Reading ,
provide ongoing technical support on how to integrate reading into camping and school club programs,
and ensure quality assurance in reaching numerical targets in reading gains.
CAPACITY: YMCA Senegal and the Africa Alliance brings to the table: a platform for reaching youth,
an established model of voluntarism, a cadre of youth volunteers who are already trained and ready to
implement, a tested training system for raising youth leaders, an expansive grassroots membership base,
locally sustaining ongoing extracurricular activities, and ability to tap into the existing alliance of African
YMCAs at minimal cost. EDC brings to the table: a well-developed reading strategy, grounded in
evidence, Read Write Now!; a four decade history of technical assistance to large scale education
programs that effect systemic change, a solid grounding in professional development and training, and a
wealth of production of teaching and learning materials, customized to the African context. EDC will
provide a quality assurance role, helping to build the capacity of the YMCA in its implementation so that it
can independently execute top-notch relevant reading activities that produce numerical gains in reading.
SUSTAINABILITY: The Package for Promoting Youth Voluntarism to Strengthen Reading among
children in the early grades will be integrated into YMCA’s Senegal country program, will build on
YMCA’s existing leadership development components and models, and will become part and parcel of
ongoing day camp programming. YMCA Senegal is currently in all 14 districts of Senegal, reaching
55,000 children and youth. The project will leave a cadre of 300 literacy volunteers with specialized
reading support and 6000 children with enhanced reading skills. School clubs will also be prepared from
the outset to continue reading activities beyond the life of the project. After piloting in Senegal, the YMCA
will then integrate the reading activities into its existing core youth leader training and will work with the
Africa Alliance of YMCAs to expand the package into country programs in 24 African countries, reaching
7 million children, starting with Sierra Leone, the Gambia, Ghana, Liberia, and Togo country programs.
POTENTIAL FOR SUCCESS ACROSS MULTIPLE CONTEXTS: The voluntarism package will be
designed so that extracurricular reading activities can be undertaken in urban or rural, under-resourced or
resourced contexts, with high or low qualified Literacy Leaders. During the two year project period,
YMCA will engage YWCAs, Boy Scouts, local clubs, association, CBOs, NGOs, school teachers, and
other child- and youth serving organizations in extracurricular reading activities so that the activities and
trends reach a much wider audience of learners and so that a host of community-based partners develop a
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functional ongoing collaboration in the sponsoring of reading enhancement activities. HYVALL anchors
each of its activities in a pre-existing community structure, thus assuring the sustainability of the activity
after outside funding has concluded. The experimentation with this package and model will be applied
when HVYALL is expanded to the next tranche of African nations.
LINKAGE TO EDUCATION SYSTEM: HYVALL proposes to bridge formal and nonformal learning.
While many of the extracurricular activities will be conducted outside of the formal system, HYVALL will
create a strong linkage to the primary school. After-school tutoring sessions, Homework Clubs, Reading
Clubs and other relevant clubs will all be used as venues of individual service commitments of Youth
Literacy Leaders. HYVALL will also engage teachers, school staff and school-mates into reading
extracurricular activities and special events. The project will initiate intimate collaboration with formal
schools, keeping abreast of and engaged with school-based activities, and outside-the-classroom activities
will support and reinforce reading activities that originate in the classroom. YMCA Senegal has already-
established strong collaboration with Ministry of Education through programs in support of school
libraries, HIV/AIDS activities in schools, nonformal education and other areas, with many current teachers
being former YMCA Youth Leaders. HYVALL will draw on this strong relationship to ensure that
project activies add real value to formal education activities and Ministry of Education strategic directions.
SCALE &TARGETS:
HYVALL proposes to reach 2500 children in Senegal in Year 1 and 3500 children in Year 2.
6000 children reached over life of project, with a minimum of 300 youth volunteers engaged
IMPLEMENTATION ACTIVITIES: Reading activities will be built on the themes of the camp
(example: leadership, protection of environment, etc). Activities will be undertake in a fun, experiential
manner, in accordance with the recreational spirit of the environment, but also methodically in order to
adhere to the components of an evidence-based approached to reading. During school year and school
breaks, youth volunteer as Literacy Leaders. Reading activities will be undertaken through: YMCA after-
school day camps, school break YMCA day camps, afterschool tutorial sessions, school Clubs (Homework
Club, Reading Club, etc.), and community library venues.
Training: HYVALL will customize the Read Right Now! package for Promoting Youth Voluntarism to
Strengthen Reading among children in the early grades. This package will contain modules on:
Youth Leadership
Youth Voluntarism
How to Create Literacy Leaders
Training in an Evidence Based Approach to
Reading
Explicit Instruction of Skills
Oral Language Development
Authentic Reading
Authentic Writing
Teaching and Learning Materials to Use in
Children’s Activities
Monitoring Learner Progress through the
Early Grade Reading Assessment
Replication of Model in Other Contexts
HYVALL will first provide a training-of-training to core master trainers, then roll out training for youth
volunteers. Over the life of the project, Literacy Leaders will receive refresh training to improve their own
reading proficiency. Volunteers may be YMCA members, scout leaders, or youth engaged with local CBOs.
School Clubs and Tutoring Support: Youth Literacy Leaders will form after school tutoring sessions
or join Homework Clubs where these exist. Literacy Leaders will support learners in completing
homework successfully and mastering the components of reading including phonological awareness, site
word recognition, vocabulary development, reading fluency and reading comprehension. The youth
volunteers will also encourage reading-for-pleasure time. Through these after-school clubs, such as Reading
Clubs and Homework, school club members will participate in the plethora of activities described below.
Games: When camp counselors are teaching a specific content area, they will use games that both build
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reading skills and knowledge of content. For instance, an undertaking an activity on the “qualities of good
leader” is also an opportunity for a vocabulary game in which learners generate and then master the
pronunciation, spelling and meaning of new vocabulary words. Games will also build phonemic
awareness. A camp counselor might say, “Today, the letter of the day is /C/? We will have a game to see
which team can come up with more qualities of a good leader that start with the letter, C. Answers could
arise: “courageous”, “creative”, “caring”, etc. To reinforce intrinsic motivation to learn and to keep costs
down, rewards for games would not be material incentives but rather the satisfaction and pride of top scores.
Puzzles: Puzzles provide quiet reflection times where students learn to decode words, perform
crossword puzzles, and put components of a word or sentence together in the right order. Both individual
and group literacy puzzles will be developed and interspersed between more demanding physical activities.
Songs and Chants: After camp counselors introduce a new topic, they can challenge children to make
songs, chants or poems to convey the concept. Learners will work in groups, writing their songs and edit
and reworking the order so that they are combining content development, oral skills and writing skills .
Reading Sessions: The experiential nature of camps necessitates a time in which students have
quiet reflection time after intense and engaging interactive activities. The non-school environment creates
an opportunity for children to experience reading on texts and topics not covered in the school curriculum,
such as introducing reading about histories, tales, and epics that build the creativity, imagination and
exposure children to new life experiences and to children facing life challenges similar to their own.
Daily Journaling: At the end of each day of school break camp, children and youth will be engaged in
personal journaling. This may include writing about how they experienced an activity. What was
challenging for them? What was easy for them but challenging for others? How did they solve problems
and overcome challenges? How could they apply what they learned in their own lives? Since writing skills
may be under-developed in learners, camp counselors will be given specific training to offer supportive
tutoring during journaling session, circulating and helping answer questions about to express concepts. On
occasion, learners will have opportunities to share their journaling with other students.
Storytelling Circles: Building on the Read Right Now! strategy, oral exposure to language is a key
component of being able to effectively process written symbols. Camp counselors will include story
telling as a means of exposing students to listening and focusing on the reading aloud of written narrative.
Storytelling will introduce the topics that students will be learning about during the day’s activities (e.g
civic education, leadership development, outdoors survival, cooperation through sports) followed by active question and answer questions that incorporate critical thinking, since we know that in developing
countries, it is reading comprehension skills that need the most strengthening. Learners will be encouraged
to present their own written pieces, stories and poems during story telling circles, where they will practice
pronunciation, cadence, and articulation as ways of engaging their listeners. This will simultaneously build
their own fluency skills as well as pride in sharing their own written works. Joke-telling Sessions: Students will be encouraged write down and create jokes. They will then present
the jokes they have written down orally, linking writing skills with oral presentation.
Integrating Writing with Drawing: As students build holistic skills, they will be encouraged to take
their own journal pieces or stories, and develop drawings or collages to accompany these pieces, helping
them visualize and engage in what they write about. Stories will be posted on bulletin boards to generate
interest in seeing the creations of their peers, with winning selections adapted into local reading materials.
Reading Competitions: Organizing of reading competitions as a form of healthy competition can make
reading fun and brings emotional rewards. In order to encourage creativity, groups of students would be
challenged to develop sets of questions for the opposing team. Using teams to develop material and cross
question the opposing team will bring a new style of collaboration and in interaction in question
development which is new and thrilling for many who are products of a “chalk and talk” system.
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Writing Competitions: As learners journal over the course of the camp and develop stories for the
Storytelling Circle, they will be encouraged to keep a portfolio of their work. At the end-of-school break
graduation ceremony will be a time when selected writing pieces can be shared with the large group. The
honor of being selected and the prestige of reading one’s material in front of others is a pride that often
stays with learners into their young adult years. Selected stories will also be published in newsletters and
for circulation to a wider group of learners during upcoming programs. HYVALL will organize local,
regional and national reading /writing competitions, in collaboration with Ministry of Education authorities.
Engagement of Family and Community in Reading: Family members including parents, brothers,
sisters and extensive extended family networks will be invited to be present at venues where winning pieces
by students are presented. Family intrinsic interest will be generated through encouragement of the retelling
of family histories and oral traditions. Community members will also be invited as role models, guest
speakers, public readers and honorable guests at special events. HYVALL will use these events as a vehicle
to educate community members in the role that parent/child reading, word play, and verbal interaction in
preparing children for later achievement, introducing family members to why and how to increase young
children’s reading readiness by engaging in reading-skill related activities at home.
“Publishing-House in-a-Box”: Teaching and Learning Material Production: In an environment where
most reading materials are imported from Western countries and lack context relevant to Africa, HYVALL
will utilize YMCA, schools, and community libraries as a venues for locally relevant material production.
Extracurricular activities will provide parameters for development of materials for different levels according
to research-based guidelines in terms of length, sentence simplicity, etc. The contextually-appropriate,
leveled, locally-produced reading materials generated will be reproduced and distributed. HYVALL will
utilize IT centers as a site where students can type, edit and design their work. In each community, a school,
library or YMCA camp site will be equipped with a “Publishing-House in-a-Box”, i.e. photocopier, binding
machine and laminating machine so that student’s work can be displayed and preserved in environments
where dust and rain are common, using low-cost, easily maintained equipment.
Local Library Support: HYVALL will support the development of libraries and reading rooms at
YMCA, schools, and community libraries. Each school will be supplied with a trunk of books as a starter
set. Bulletin boards will be also be mounted for public display of written work. Poetry, stories, riddles,
oral histories and fables produced locally by children will be distributed to local schools, libraries, YMCA
centers. HYVALL will orchestrate children’s “Book Launches” to draw attention to the work and draw
community and family engagement into local libraries and reading rooms. HYVALL will also conduct
yearly Materials Sharing Gatherings to share work with MOE, publishers, libraries, NGOs, and related
organizations (such as Association for Research on Education in Development and Bibliothèque-Lecture-
Développement ) and discuss plans for utilization of locally generated works. Library support will not only
reach local, but regional and international sources as well, sharing materials with resource institutions like
the University of Iowa E-Granary Digital Library, CODECAN, Development Experience Clearinghouse,
and other institutions with mandates to spread reading materials with a wider audience of Africans.
MANAGEMENT PLAN & APPROACH: YMCA Senegal will serve as the lead, receiving monitoring ,
evaluation and scale-up support from Africa Alliance and drawing on EDC technical assistance in reading
strateg. YMCA will apply its model of management that has created sustainable voluntarism over the last
three decades. The YMCA is a volunteer organization, led by volunteers from national to grassroots levels.
These volunteers set the yearly orientation for the executive team and elect national and local boards to
monitor and work along with staff for resource mobilization and programs implementation, and are
involved in designing, implementation and monitoring of all activities. This approach to mobilizing long-
term volunteers will be applied to generating long-term sustainable commitment to increases in reading.
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DATA, MONITORING & EVALUATION: At the start of the intervention, EDC will administer a
baseline evaluation utilizing the electronic Early Grade Reading Assessment. This tool will be administered
in a fun, interactive way so that it seems more like a game than a “test”, in line with the experiential theme
of the camp. The assessment will measure letter name knowledge, phonemic awareness, letter sound
knowledge, familiar word reading, familiar word reading, pseudo-word reading, oral reading fluency with
comprehension, listening comprehension, reading comprehension and dictation as well as school grades.
Both youth Literacy Leaders and children will take the pre-test in order to establish a link between the
change in reading skills of both groups. Over the course of the program field staff will conduct regular
monitoring and evaluation in order to be able to monitor quality of the program implementation, reading
progress of learners, and skill development of reading facilitation by youth Literacy Leaders. Monitoring
will take in special account the skills development of volunteers and their ability to help children make
measured quantitative gains in reading. An endline assessment will be administered to measure change in
reading skills, generating data on change in scores, correlation of rates at which child increase in reading
follows Literacy Leader increase in reading; and comparison of how change in reading after extracurricular
intervention correlates with school grades in language and reading . The endline assessment will also make
recommendations for next steps on scale-up and integration with the education system.
IMPLEMENTATION TIMELINE: HYVALL seeks to achieve the following objectives: A) Development of specialized skills of volunteers in facilitating reading extracurricular activities
B) Measurable increase in reading skills of children
C) Increased performance in reading in academic and non-academic contexts
D) Association of reading with fun and relevance
E) Stimulation of a culture of reading and passion for reading at the community level
F) Strengthened capacity of community-based organizations to support reading initiatives
OBJ ACTIVITIES QTR 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 INDICATO R O F SUCCESS
F Start- Up Programmatic, financial, administrative systems
in place F Staff hiring Staff hired & oriented
F Consultations with Local Schools &
MOE
Consultatations conducted, Education
Stakeholders enthusiastically supporting program
F Workplan Development Workplan developed; school,national education &
CBO input incorporated C Baseline Assessment Assessment conducted. Baseline scores shared
with participants. F Creation of Youth Voluntarism
Package
Package created & ready for dissemination &
replication. A Training of Trainers Master Trainers trained & demonstrating
competence in subject knowledge &
transformational training ability A Cascading of Training Youth Literacy Leaders trained & demonstrating
mastery of material E Mobilization of Families,
Communities & Schools
Families & communities attending & supporting
children to attend; Schools engaging cooperatively in integration between in-
school/out-of-school activities B, C, D Conducting of Reading Activities in
Day Camp, School, Comm. Libraries Children attaining measurable reading increases
over time B, C, D Addition of School Break Camp to
Activities More intensive gains in measurable reading
improvement among children F Ongoing monitoring Staff detecting challenges. Challenges shared with
team. CBOs implementing responses
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E,F Book Launches. Materials Sharing Gatherings
Materials shared & taken up by education
partners F Year 1 review & strategic planning Key challenges addressed. Key successes
multiplied. F Consultations with Local Schools,
MOE, CBOs on next steps All education & community stakeholders engaged
in making reading activities successful.
F Engagement of exp&ed base of community actors
Increased number of community-based actors engaged.
C Endline Evaluation Increased performance in reading among children & Literacy Leaders
C Preparation of final reports &
assessments Reports disseminated to key stakeholders
F Reflection on Experimental Model &
Preparation for scale up Other community actors engaged in planning for
integration of reading programs. F Prep for scale up in other country
programs Other country programs engaged in planning for
integration of reading
BUDGET: Over the two year HYVALL project period, strict budget adherence will be maintained and cost
savings will be effected by drawing on existing resources, including use of YCMA office space, meeting
space, and extracurricular venue space, use of existing community libraries, use of existing school venues
for school club activities. In addition, the use of volunteer Literacy Leaders will effect great savings on the
project and lead to greater chances of sustainable replicability. (See cost application).
FORESTALLING CHALLENGES: Challenges occurs as natural part of any activity. HYVALL has
developed the following plan to respond to impediments and key assumptions that may affect project
outcomes. From each challenge, emerges critical decision points at which the YMCA must be keenly
informed and make timely decisions so that problems are resolved expediently and do not mushroom.
POTENTIAL CHALLENGE RESPONSE
Ability of children to consistently
participate when faced with
responsibilities for homework,
income generation, sibling care or
other domestic activities
YMCA will begin all project activities by consultations with school, so that schools
are aware of extracurricular activities, how these support in-school work. HVYALL
will mobilize families, so that families understand the value of reading skills for
children’s future, how better learning can improve income and reduce domestic
burden.
Low level of literacy of youth
volunteers
HYVALL will provide intensive initial training in reading approaches & ongoing
support in strengthening volunteers’ reading levels.
Frequent turnover or lack of
fulfillment of service commitments
among volunteers
HYVALL will select youth carefully, choosing those who already demonstrated
commitment, especially for 1stcohort. HYVALL will help youth put service
commitments on resumes , emphasizing the win-win mutual benefits for academic
/professional careers through strengthened reading &community service skills .
Willingness of family and
community members to invest time
in extracurricular reading activities
YMCA will dedicate staff specifically to community mobilization recognizing that
mobilization does not happen only at start-up, but continues throughout the life of a
project in order to be successful.
Willingness of non-YMCA
community organizations to fully
embrace reading as a core activity
YMCA will engage these organizations from start-up phase, helping them
understand the importance of reading and how reading can support and be integrated
into all types of other ongoing programs they sponsor.
Level of collaboration with school-
level or national MOE
YMCA will engage national and local school authorities from the outset, so that activities are developed in line with national policy and frameworks and support and reinforce ongoing school initiatives.
Scalability of the model HYVALL will take note of all lessons learned from the start, sharing with all 24 YMCA country programs ongoing updates in prep for scale-up.
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SUPPORTING MATERIALS:
APPENDIX ATTACHMENTS
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THEORY OF CHANGE CHART
THEORY OF CHANGE: Youth Literacy Leaders volunteer in extracurricular activities for children, resulting in increased reading gains among children, reinforcing school-based reading efforts and
infusing enthusiasm for reading among families and community
INTERVENTIONS
INTERMEDIATE OBJECTIVES
INDICATORS DEVELOPMENT IMPACT
ASSUMPTIONS
Training and
Deployment of
Youth
Literacy Leaders
Reinforcement of reading skills of Literacy Leaders Development of specialized skills in facilitating reading extracurricular activities
Rate of reading fluency among youth volunteers Rate of reading comprehension among youth volunteers Number of hours engaged in community service
Cadre of youth volunteers engaging in community service to increase reading outcomes Role modeling has ripple effect to motivate other youth to volunteer
Youth volunteers can develop high enough skill levels and consistent enough service commitments to impact child reading scores
Reading
Activities in Day
Camps, After-
school
Tutorial Sessions
and School
Clubs
Measurable increase in reading skills of children Association of reading with fun and relevance
Rate of reading fluency among participating children Rate of reading comprehension among participating children
Increased performance in reading in academic and non-academic contexts
Extracurricular venues can provide enough focused attention to a task and enough time on task to increase reading skill rates
Community
Engageme
nt and Communit
y Library Events
Engagement of family and community members in reading
Number of visits from family and community members participating in reading activities
Stimulation of a culture of reading and passion for reading at the community level
Community mobilization and one on one contact will be able to generate enthusiasm and persuade community members to redirect time from leisure, income generation or domestic activities toward reading
Communit
y-based organizati
ons join to
implement reading-
focused activities
Engagement of host of local actors and community-based organizations in extracurricular reading activities
Number of reading activities initiated through local or community-based organizations
Strengthened capacity of community-based organizations to support reading initiatives
Other organizations will be willing to make the adjustments to incorporate reading into their existing implementation program.
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GENDER ANALYSIS
The constraints to girl’s education in Senegal, and more broadly in the African context, is widely
recognized, with just a few of the barriers girls face outlined below.
TYPE OF BARRIER
SPECIFIC CONSTRAINTS
Cultural/ Environmenta
l Level
gender roles and expectations, domestic responsibilities, early marriage and pregnancy, nutrition, health and HIV/AIDS, poverty and need for income generation during school hours, high
opportunity costs, mother illiteracy
School/
Institutional Level
difficulty in identifying out of school girls, distance from school, poor sanitation and unsafe
environments within and around the school, lack of a gender sensitive school environment, poor teaching and learning processes, lack of female role models and teachers, lack of guidance and counseling services, gender-based violence at school
System / Policy Level
lack of a gender-sensitive curriculum, lack of alternative forms of education, unequal access to secondary and tertiary education, lack of re-admission policies, armed conflict or crisis situations
that adversely affect girls, lack of future employment prospects for young women
Due to environmental constraints, girls’ reading does trail that of boys in the developing world. However,
when they are measured against boys for strictly neurological pace of reading development they excel boys
at almost every age (Eliot, 1999). Therefore, when girls are placed in an equal environment, where they are
called on the same amount of time as boys, where they are given equal value and where gender roles are
actively promoted as equal, they can make equal gains. YMCA has witnessed this through the In Liberia
joint YMCA/EDC programming, girls began with lower scores than boys in all areas of reading, and by the
end of the project, in a number of reading skill areas, their pace of progress outstripped boys
(USAID/CESLY, 2011).
YMCA’s philosophy on gender is that every National YMCA should contribute to the realisation of
equality between men and women in Africa, with a particular focus on youth development, through the
working environment for staff and volunteers of the YMCA, through programs, projects and initiatives for
beneficiaries and in all relationships with partners.
YMCA will ensure that gender parity is achieved in all staffing so that all activities role model the way girls
are to be engaged. This role modeling is particularly important in the recruitment of Master Trainers and
Literacy Leader, so that youth see that their trainers can be equally competent in reading instruction whether
man or women, and so that children see youth volunteers who are both male and female. This is
particularly important where children do not have a plethora of female teachers to set role models how
females can be active in education.
Parity will be adhered to in all extracurricular activities so that when a boy is called on, a girls is also called
on; so that winners of writing competitions are selected with one male and one female; so that the teaching
and learning materials in the voluntarism package will be developed with specific gender consideration
showing girls in nontraditional activities and portraying girls as successful and competent. Girls will also
be given specific attention during extracurricular reading activities, to ensure that the speed and accuracy of
their development matches those of their male peers.
Gender does not only mean girls. Boys also have special needs, particularly in the case of Talibé Quranic
school students, who have not had opportunities to excel in in-school programs. HYVALL will make
special outreach efforts in order to ensure this group is invited to join activities, that their marabout teachers
allow them to consistently participate and that they receive special attention in improving reading scores.
