Back “We want to create opportunities in countries such as Mali and Uganda and this can’t be done if rights such as health and education are not guaranteed”

“We want to create opportunities in countries such as Mali and Uganda and this can’t be done if rights such as health and education are not guaranteed”

Laia Dosta, UPF alumna, is the driving force behind the NGO Djouma, which works to ensure the right to equitable, quality, universal health and education, as well as the empowerment of women. 

08.03.2019

 

Laia Dosta is 23 years old and has just finished her bachelor’s degree in Advertising and Public Relations at UPF. This summer she’s going to live in Mali.  In two years she has got the funding to build a nursery school and renovate a medical centre on the outskirts of Bamako, the capital. Now she’s “home” to continue developing what has become his life project, Djouma, the NGO she set up herself.

- This year you have again received financial aid from UPF Solidària for your NGO Djouma. What do you think about the University’s involvement in cooperation and development initiatives? 

I think it makes sense and is a way of leading by example. There are people who go on about believing in cooperation and solidarity and then do nothing. But UPF is committed not to big projects of the big NGOs, but to small projects that the university community can become a part of. It is a way of encouraging student initiative.

- What will the NGO invest the aid in?

We have a project in Uganda, called Gomesi, that is working for the empowerment of women. It consists of three parts: financial advice, vocational training and community awareness-raising. The aid from UPF will be used to fund this last part, namely awareness-raising talks that are held once a month. Nine hundred women will benefit from them and important issues are dealt with such as gender-based violence, marriage and child labour, human rights...

“900 women will benefit from them and important issues are dealt with such as gender-based violence, marriage and child labour, human rights...”

- How does Djouma work and what goals does it pursue?

We are a very small initiative, we started three years ago. We have a team of volunteers, the Djouma network, which consists of some 20 people. Each day, one of them helps Djouma doing what they know because they do so in their day to day, such as designing, preparing workshops for children, lending a hand with the computing or taking photographs. My role is to coordinate all these people to enable all of the projects carried out in Uganda and Mali. We do not have volunteers in these countries, what we do is hire local people with the funding we get thanks to the volunteers here.

Djouma’s mission is to guarantee the right to equitable, quality, universal health and education. That’s how we started, and now, in addition, we are working to empower women. But always on the basis that what we want is to create opportunities in countries such as Mali and Uganda and these opportunities are not created if the rights to health and education are not guaranteed.

- You’re 23 years old and you have finished your bachelor’s degree in Advertising and Public Relations and this summer you’re going to live in Mali. But where did it all begin?

I ended up in Mali because I went there as a volunteer with an organization called CCONG. I fell in love with the country and its people and I decided to return the following summer. That was when I founded Djouma, my own project. Before, however, I had been a volunteer and I understood that what I wanted was for the people in the country to work for the project.

- What motivated you to go to Mali that first summer?

I’ve always had this humanistic side to me. I had already been to Africa before, I was really attracted to it, I wanted get out of my comfort zone and experience other realities. I also wanted to see how the people there developed these charity projects.

- The third summer you obtain funding to promote your own project, to renovate a medical centre, and the following year to build a nursery school. How did you achieve this?

The second summer we came across a derelict hospital, we founded Djouma and we were a whole year collecting funds to fix the medical centre in the third summer. All this money we get mainly through private sources, including private individuals who decide to give us a donation. We also sell merchandising and carry out specific activities such as selling roses and books on Sant Jordi (Saint George’s day). There is another part consisting of aid such as that of Pompeu Fabra or small businesses that decide to donate to Djouma.

- What encouraged you to start a project like this?

Djouma began in the summer of 2015, when I was a volunteer in Mali. With a colleague in Mali I went to visit a rural area and I saw a building in ruins. I asked to go in and I was very surprised when I was told that it was a hospital. I was rather shocked. When we left, we went to visit a family who are friends of my colleague who lived right opposite and I met a girl who was the essence of life whose name is Djouma. The day I returned to Barcelona they called me and told me that she had died of malaria. She lived 20 metres from the hospital and died of a disease that has a cure. I was devastated for a while but then I decided to pick myself up again, found Djouma with a colleague called Marina and seek funding to renovate the hospital.

“With a colleague in Mali I went to visit a rural area and I saw a building in ruins. I asked to go in and I was very surprised when I was told that it was a hospital”

- How are you approaching this new stage?

I’m going to live in Mali at the end of May and I’m quite apprehensive about it but I’m really looking forward to it. I’ve always travelled there with a return ticket and now I have the opportunity to take my time, to discover new communities, new people, to follow my instincts and see where we could start new projects with local communities. It is a very big challenge but I’m more excited than apprehensive.

- How do you think development cooperation should be approached?

The problem of development cooperation is even its name indicates a situation of inferiority. Cooperation should be to work on equal terms and for the local people to have greater involvement in the projects. Right now, most cooperation projects are designed in northern countries to implement them in the south, and at most to hire people from the countries in the south. But the local people are not actively involved in the design of the project because the idea is not theirs, they don’t lead it. They contract them to do a job, they do it and that’s that. But they don’t even participate in the design, or in the planning, or in the evaluation, not to mention the implementation. I think that the future of cooperation is to give them these opportunities, not for us to take all the decisions.

“I think that the future cooperation is to give them these opportunities, not for us to take all the decisions”

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