About College Adja Penda Ba

College Adja Penda Ba is located in the small town of Nioro, an impoverished area of Senegal where children have few opportunities to learn. When Khady Lusby, OPEN Intl. founder, visited the library at the high school in Nioro few years ago, she found a room marked “library” but was saddened to learn that it only had few books. How are students expected to succeed in a school where textbooks are lacking; she asked, but there was no answer to such a question. Using her savings, Khady decided to change things. She started sending money to a friend in Dakar to buy used required textbooks to help the students in exam classes.

Until recently, College Adja Penda Ba was funded almost entirely by Khady herself, with periodic donations from friends. In 2010, that changed when she founded the non-profit organization “OPEN International” dedicated to the education of children in Nioro and the villages in the area. Khady Lusby serves as the President of Open International which is administered by a local board of Directors and Advisors in Senegal.

Accomplished Through Donations

• We have already acquired a piece of land, built two classrooms for the 2009/10 school year, and raised funds in 2010 to start construction on a new building that will have four more classrooms, a computer room, and a library. The new building is expected to be completed by July 2011 ready for the 2011/12 school year.
• Besides funds, we received twenty computers that were donated by a local business and the free software installation done by the Ubuntu group at the Arlington Career Center, Arlington VA.
• The Community Action Club at Washington Lee High school in Arlington, VA  is raising funds for OPEN with the goal of sponsoring four students next school year.

Future Goals of the School

• Securing a reliable internet connection
• Hiring more teachers
• Admitting more students through sponsorship programs
• Developing a school farm that will include gardening, planting a variety of fruit trees, as well as raising chickens and sheep

Becoming A Sister School

College Adja Penda Ba anticipates developing relationships with training schools and universities in Senegal to ensure that students have access to higher education. OPEN International is also seeking partnerships between College Adja Penda Ba and local schools in the U.S. to promote fundraising and awareness of the difficulty of securing an education in rural Senegal. These partnerships will benefit all students by widening their world view and helping them become better citizens of the world.