| Trustees' Annual Report for the period | |||||||||||
| From | Period start date | T o |
Period end date | ||||||||
| 01 | Jan | 2021 | 31 | Dec | 2021 | ||||||
| Section A Reference and administration details | |||||||||||
| Charity name | Niokolo Network | ||||||||||
| Other names charity is known by | None | ||||||||||
| Registered charity number (if any) | 1169126 | ||||||||||
| Charity's principal address | 2 Alexandra Road | ||||||||||
| Cardiff | |||||||||||
| Postcode | CF5 1NS | ||||||||||
Names of the charity trustees who manage the charity
Dr Tabitha Ndiaye (Chair): 09.09.2016 - Present
Dr Daphne Kerhoas (Secretary): 09.09.2016 - Present Lorraine Clark (Treasurer) 26.05.2022 - Present
Dr Matthis Drolet: 21.12.2016 – Present
Dr Federica Dal Pesco 10.06.2019 - Present
Roxanna Rawson 10.06.2019 - Present
Claire Clément 28.02.2021 - Present
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Section B Structure, governance and management
Description of the charity’s trusts
Type of governing Constitution document How the charity is constituted CIO
Appointed for a term of 2 years by a resolution passed at a convened meeting of the charity trustees. Trustee selection methods
Section C Objectives and activities
Summary of the objects of the charity set out in its governing document
The object of the CIO is to promote sustainable development for the benefit of the public in economically disadvantaged communities on the periphery of Niokolo-Koba National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Danger located in south-eastern Senegal.
The objects of the charity are to be achieved through:
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The relief of poverty and the improvement of living conditions;
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The promotion of sustainable means of achieving economic growth and regeneration;
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The protection and restoration of the environment by the prudent use of natural resources.
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Section D Activities and Achievements
2021 Achievements
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We continue to deliver our work through partnerships with Senegalese
organisations. Our key partners continue to be the Senegalese Community Based
Organisation “Kamben” and the Senegalese NGO “Kamben Productions”. Over
the course of this year we also began a new relationship with the French
Association Nawari Kourientine, which supports the delivery of the community
development plan for Kourientine village, on the NW side of Niokolo-Koba
National Park and we are excited for opportunities to share our skills and
learnings from overlapping areas of work. The achievements listed here would not
have been possible without the hard work of our partners and the many other
organisations who have lent us their support. We are also grateful to the Welsh
Government’s Wales and Africa Grant Scheme, The Waterloo Foundation, the
Strathspey Charitable Trust and The Kitchen Table Charities Trust for the grant
funding that enabled us to carry out the work described below.
Key Achievements
✓ Completion of a series of six short local language film/music clips
providing messages to help reduce the transmission of COVID-19 and to
reduce vaccine hesitancy for the COVID-19 vaccine.
✓ Distribution of COVID-19 film/music clips through social media and
YouTube channel, achieving ~80,000 views.
✓ Hygiene promotion with handwashing devices and locally made soap
with hygiene behaviour prompts across eight villages
✓ Expansion of birth registration work, helping over 300 people to get their
birth certificate from across six villages
✓ Kamben Productions continue to maintain their small office and to
produce local language educational films.
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2021 Activities
Local context
COVID-19 continued to dominate headlines and happenings in Senegal in 2021, and was the main external factor to impact on our activities over the course of the year. Early in the year a second wave began to hit Senegal and the country’s President declared that the country should re-enter a state of emergency. The first doses of the COVID-19 vaccine were planned to arrive in March 2021 but with the expectation that large-scale roll out would take time. Vaccine hesitancy was a big concern, with numerous myths circulating about the risks and politics of the vaccine drive, and a belief that these fears could result in low vaccine uptake even when vaccines were readily available. In response to the ongoing pandemic, we continued to prioritise the health and safety of our project partners and to follow government restrictions, in particular this was seen in our continued use of animated clips distributed through social media and phone networks, rather than the community-based film making and screenings that had previously been a big part of our work. As well as changing our way of working,
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we also continued to develop and run COVID-19 awareness raising campaigns alongside our ongoing rural birth registration programme.
Projects:
1. COVID-19 Health Campaign
The start of 2021 saw Niokolo Network and our Senegal partners complete the production of a music clip called Xeex Corona, a two minute rap in Wolof reaching out to young people to stress that Covid-19 is a serious illness and that they should take the social distancing restrictions seriously. This added to three other short film clips produced the previous year, with the final collection of four videos providing key public health messaging in local languages, targeted to different audiences.
“Xeex COVID-19”
A 1.5-minute film clip. Senegalese soundtrack with French subtitles. The clip provides the WHO guidance within the setting of a Senegalese street scene. Click here to watch.
“Un message pour les enfants” A 2-minute film clip to help younger children understand public health guidance and to normalise mask wearing and more distanced play. A Senegalese soundtrack is used. Click here to watch.
“Suivi ces etapes simples…”
A 3-minute animation with Mandinka voice over and French subtitles. The film explains what the virus is, what the symptoms are, how it is transmitted, 5 steps to reducing transmission, and what to do if you suspect you or another has COVID-19. Click here to watch.
“Xeex Corona”
A 2-minute rap in Wolof. Reaching out to young adults to stress that the virus is real and that it is killing people. Looking to persuade them to wear masks correctly and washing hands when spending time with friends. Click here to watch.
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Following on from the production of the above film clips focussing on the prevention of COVID-19 transmission, we then produced two new films with funding from the Welsh Government’s Wales and Africa Grant Programme. These focussed in on the issue of vaccine hesitancy within the Senegalese general public. For the initial animation film we began with our partner organisations (Kamben and Kamben Productions) sharing with us the key COVID-19 vaccine myths circulating within our area of work. Using this information Niokolo Network wrote a draft film script referring to various trusted websites such as the WHO and John Hopkins Medicine COVID-19 Myth Busting internet pages. We shared the script with members of the Wales Africa Health Links Network and THET who kindly factchecked the information we were providing, before sending a final version of the script to Kamben Productions and Kamben to make sure the information was context appropriate. Once the final draft of the script had been agreed by all partner organisations, this was made into an animated film with Wolof narration and French subtitles. The second film was made from an interview with the Doctor in charge of COVID-19 oversight at a major hospital in Dakar. We added these two new films focussing on vaccine hesitancy, to the four previously produced films focussing in on COVID-19 public health advice.
“Se vacciner, se protégé” A 2-minute animation clip. Wolof narration with French sub-titles. The clip provides information on why vaccination is important, how the vaccine works, the safety tests that vaccines go through, the common side-effects experienced, and what is known about the effectiveness of the vaccines. Click here to watch.
“Recommandations de Docteur Ndour” A 4-minute interview in Wolof with French sub-titles with Dr Ndour, a COVID-19 specialist at a Dakar hospital, sharing his knowledge and advice relating to the disease and recommending vaccination as a way of preventing serious illness in adults. Click here to watch.
This series of six film clips was distributed nationwide via Facebook. Key metrics describing the impact of our information campaign are provided in the table below. The project also helped Kamben Film grow the number of followers they have on their YouTube channel, this has reached 286 people ensuring that every time they publish a film it immediately reaches close to 300 people who have especially indicated an interest in their work. Films published on the Kamben Film YouTube page have been viewed a total of 28,929 times showing that this is also an effective platform for reaching people.
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| Film | People Reached |
No. views >1minute |
No. of Reactions |
|---|---|---|---|
| Se vacciner, se protégé | 34,475 | 28,948 | 31 |
| Docteur Ndour | 19,719 | 542 | 78 |
| Xeex COVID-19 | 70,382 | 7,432 | 714 |
| Message pour les enfants | 39,068 | 4,585 | 2,072 |
| Suivi ces etapes simples | 54,370 | 8,459 | 65 |
| Xeex Corona | 49,546 | 9,200 | 1,145 |
| Total | 267,560 | 52,166 | 4,105 |
In 2021 we also began a trial of establishing a communications network across selected villages situated adjacent to Niokolo-Koba National Park. To do this we used a communications platform developed and run by the Senegalese NGO Jokalanti as well as WhatsApp groups to distribute regular prompts relating to public health advice across rural communities situated around Niokolo-Koba National Park. A total of 25 short animated film clips were produced by Kamben Film Group covering topics such as handwashing and social distancing and the correct way to wear a mask. They also aimed to bust common myths in circulation, for example eating chili will not prevent you from catching the virus, the virus can spread in hot countries, and young people are not immune. These short clips had a duration of less than 20 seconds and were designed to be regular reminders or prompts to sustain changes in behaviour. Contact details were collected across six villages using the free survey software Kobobox, and film clips were shared via mobile phones. A training was provided by two German volunteers on how to use the software Kobobox to collect information in the field and transmit this to an online database.
Village volunteers receiving training to conduct the field surveys needed to set up our communication networks
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2. Health and Hygiene
In 2020 we began a programme of installing Tippy Taps and had completed this within households in a single village. By the end of 2021 we had increased this to a total of 234 tippy taps installed across eight villages in the vicinity of Niokolo-Koba National Park within the commune of Dialocoto. The Tippy Tap is a handwashing structure that is operated using a foot (avoiding contamination from germs on a person’s hand) with soap conveniently attached within reach. It is a very simple design that can be built with minimum instructions, with basic tools and using materials that can be found for free in the local area or purchased cheaply on local markets. A single Tippy Tap was installed per household and was installed at the entrance.
A Tippy Tap installed at the entrance to a family home.
Demonstrating how to use the Tippy Tap
A small team of local youth took responsibility for constructing the Tippy Taps and reported that the installation was easy, but over the year they started to improve the design by adding an old tyre filled with gravel to better absorb the used water and to avoid attracting livestock and bees. Generally community members were happy with the Tippy Tap model, but whilst some households maintained and frequently used the Tippy Tap, in other households the Tippy Tap was knocked down by loose livestock and not repaired. Ongoing campaigns to raise awareness of the importance of handwashing will be important, and towards the end of the project Kamben was seeing an increasing interest from other villages to have Tippy Taps installed.
Although soap is an essential part of getting rid of germs whilst handwashing, in more remote and rural areas it is often hard to find and typically the soap for sale in local shops is imported, expensive, and made with unsustainable palm oil sources. Over the course of 2021 Niokolo Network has worked with Kamben and with our new partner Nawari Kourientine to support two groups of women to produce local soap. The women’s group from Badi village had been making and selling four different kinds of soap made with local palm oil, banana powder and shea butter for the last 10 years but they had basic materials and were struggling to increase their number of sales. Niokolo Network helped them to buy some new equipment and also purchased a bulk order of soaps to be used with the installed Tippy-Taps. A second group of women based in Kourientine village began soap making work with new equipment purchased for them and training provided by Claire Clément, a member of Niokolo Network and Nawari Kourientine.
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Soap making group and soap from Badi village
Soap making group and soap from Kourientine village
3. Birth Registration Programme
Activities were begun in early 2021 to build on our last year’s pilot rural birth registration event. Documents were collected from six villages from a total of 318 people lacking their birth registration certificate (primarily students in their final year of Primary school) and these were signed off at the local Town Hall prior to being sent off to the court house in Tambacounda. It was particularly notable that School teachers in the focal villages were very motivated to help their students not miss their final exam and they participated actively in the project, helping to identify the members of the community who lacked their birth certificate and to fill in the relevant application forms for them. By the end of 2021 we were waiting for the certificates to pass through the Tribunal Office in Tambacounda in order for the certificates to be signed off and distributed via village teachers.
Kamben Association and Kamben Film Group
Over the course of 2021 we continued to support the activities of Kamben Association through financial support of a Project co-ordinator. We helped Kamben Productions to maintain an office on the outskirts of Dakar. From here they were able to produce the short film clips and animation clips described in the sections above.
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Next steps: In 2022 we look forward to:
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❖ Focussing in on the Commune of Dialocoto and carrying out a census to map the villages included within;
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❖ Expanding our birth registration work and village-level communication network across more villages within the commune of Dialocoto;
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❖ Continuing our COVID-19 campaigns and hygiene promotion as needed and depending on how the pandemic unfolds over subsequent years;
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❖ Looking at the feasibility of moving the office for Kamben Film Group back to our area of Programme delivery, to ensure that field operations and film production is tightly coupled;
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❖ Maintaining our support of Kamben Productions and Kamben Association and seeking opportunities to strengthen their ability to carry out the valuable work they do. Continuing to seek out opportunities of partnership with Association Nawari Kourentine;
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❖ Ensuring that Niokolo Network continues its growth as a competent and responsible registered charity.
We confirm the trustees have had regard to the Charity Commission’s guidance on public benefit.
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Section E Financial review
At the current time Niokolo Network is a small charity. We do not have Brief statement of any governance costs and it is the decision of the charity’s trustees the charity’s policy that no commitments to support charitable activities should be made on reserves until the necessary funds have been secured. As such, at the present time trustees are content that it is not necessary to hold any funding in reserve, but that this should be reviewed on an annual basis. None Details of any funds materially in deficit
Section F Declaration
The Trustees declare that they have approved the trustees’ report above.
Signed on behalf of the charity’s trustees
| First name(s) Signature(s) Position |
Dr Tabitha Ndiaye | Dr Daphne Kerhoas |
| Chair of Trustees | Secretary |
20.10.2022 Date
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(MARITY COMMISSION
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