The last video and blog post in my Women of Senegal series is about my mom or “Nene”. The video focuses on the small community garden we made with the money that I got from Global Citizen Year for my final community project and the bigger community garden that we want to make in the future. It was much more than her dream to make a garden for Mako, to help stop malnutrition that inspired me throughout my time in Senegal. Every thing that shocked me about women in Senegal, my mother would prove to me that things are changing. She constantly talked about how she disapproved of early marriage, early pregnancy, and said that she believed that all women need education, so that they can work to have their own income. When I was frustrated to learn that female circumcision existed in Senegal, she informed me that she helped educated the imam and the chief of the village of the dangers of female circumcision. Although, people still practice female circumcision she says that things are changing and she is part of the reason. She stands up for what she believes in and that is why she inspires me. She inspires me to be a better person. Thank you Nene for everything you did for me this year. I owe a lot of my happiness this year to her.
