Thanks to Nigérien NGO, Voluntaires pour l'Intégration Educative (VIE), rural students who have been forced to withdraw from schools will be given another chance to receive an education. VIE has spent the summer of 2007 preparing to launch an education development project that aims to reintroduce formal schooling to students through an informal teaching method called Textual Pedagogy. The initiative, which is known as “Passerelles”, is an eight month long "second chance". The program will be implemented in twenty Southern Nigérien villages each school year from 2007-2010.

VIE's mission is to fight poverty by using basic education and participatory approaches that promote capacity building and benefit rural communities. Therefore, Passerelles will be launched to increase literacy and school attendance rates [1]. Achieving gender parity is also a principal objective as the primary school attendance ratio is about 25% for girls, which is considered the weakest in West Africa [2]. With each program consisting of thirty students, at least fifteen girls will be enrolled.

Beginning October 1, 2007, students will be instructed in literacy, math, science, civics, and social sciences through the use of Textual Pedagogy, a methodological approach that emphasizes the practical relationship between texts and actual situations [3]. For example, teachers will emphasize literacy using "real life" situations and examples such as invitations, recipes, and notes. Textual Pedagogy also integrates various disciplines into lessons demonstrating the use of math and language skills when students learn to say their ages, for instance.

The principal objective of using Textual Pedagogy, according to VIE Executive Director Ali Abdoulaye, is "to place students into a particular situation, let them reflect on the given knowledge, and thus, correct and change their responses accordingly”. Abdoulaye wants the teachers to support the students and introduce them into an environment where they are expected to actively participate throughout all the lessons [4]. Passerelles strives to solidify a practical foundation of knowledge and encourages students to confront what they have already learned, whether through past formal school experience or informal education in their village. In addition to intensive study in various disciplines, students will be instructed in vocational skills such as gardening, carpentry, and poultry raising.

Passerelles will be implemented in a total of 30 villages by 2010. In Phase One of the project, students ages 9-15 will attend classes from October to November that are conducted in the villages' regional language of Djarma. Niger's official language of French will be slowly introduced to students orally for fifteen minutes at a time. In Phase Two, which runs from December to May, the French language education intensifies and students receive lessons of which half are conducted in their local language and half in French. By April, lessons will be taught using French only. This is done in order to accelerate the students' potentiality of returning to formal school. At the culmination of the school year, students are given an exam and placed in the appropriate grade level according to their results. Should they not be able to return to their original school, students will leave Passerelles with newly acquired vocational skills.

The program is evaluated on three levels. Specific monitoring is recorded by teachers after every lesson, at the end of every month, as well as at the termination of both phases. VIE monitors the project nationally through its satellite offices in the regions of Maradi, Gaya-Dosso, and Téra-Tillabéri. Funded by the Stromme Foundation, the curriculum design is adopted from other successful projects in Mali and Burkina Faso [5].

Both formal and informal educational approaches, such as Passerelles, deliver a foundation that is vehemently necessary in the fight against poverty. The IIJD congratulates VIE on its efforts to strive for education as well as gender parity. We believe that equity in opportunity leads to peace and prosperity, and therefore what VIE does in Niger is a significant step toward sustainable development in Africa. The IIJD further believes that hands-on community involvement results in individual empowerment and institutional reform. We share VIE’s aspirations of implementing a practical and effective program that yields results and insures sustainability for Nigerién youth.