Franco-Arabe – Baye Seydi Thiaw Lahi is a private French and Arabic school operating in Senegal since 1984. It was founded by Baye Seydi Thiaw Lahi, who was then the leader of the community and employed teachers following a vision to provide high-quality Arabic teaching to youngsters in a disciplined environment. The school started with only two classes teaching only Arabic, but during the 2010-2014 session, the school experienced a lot of difficulties and challenges that it nearly shut down until Mr Abass Bah who returned to the community after his studies, decided to take full responsibility of the school in 2014. During the 2014-2020 session, Franco-Arabe Baye Seydi Thiaw Lahi welcomed its first French class which was introduced by Abass himself to further enhance the children in their learning. Abass has done an incredible job in expanding the school after taking over. He added two big classes on top and divided them into four classrooms. Two of the classrooms are dedicated to teaching Arabic, while the other two are for both English and French, making it a total of six classes altogether. He also introduced English language lessons to the French classes to make it possible for the students to be bilingual. Abass is dedicated to constructing a secondary school, however, financial obstacles have impeded progress. Without sufficient funding, the school has been unable to pay teachers, finish the building, or equip students with learning materials. As a result, many families are unable to afford the tuition; therefore, Abass is covering 75% of tuition fees for affected students. A lot of families struggle to feed their families let alone try to give their children a very basic education. Abass currently has over 212 children in the school and counting, Abass does not receive any form of funding or support from the government. The children are aged 4 to 18 years old and are impoverished and disadvantaged.
