Training Sahrawi Teachers Using Photo-Narration in School

Abstract

Reconstitute community values by promoting a school for everyone was a target for the Saharawis since the first moments of exile and their status as refugees after the occupation of Western Sahara in 1975. This chapter presents two training plans based on the introduction of photography and its narratives in the environment education and how to give visibility to these practices. Data is provided obtained, lived in two real contexts attending to the living conditions and type of concerns of the Saharawis who live in each one of them. One of the personal development programs and professional teachers and students with visual storytelling takes place in the Miyik school in the liberated territories of Western Sahara. The second teacher and student training program is carried out in the Saharawi refugee camps, promoted by the Club de la Hope. The first deals directly with the question teacher and their responsibility regarding the prevention of mines antipersonnel in the zone that includes different fronts of the war. The second seeks representation and creation of ideas, concerns and uncertainties of refugee youth and adults.

Introduction

The arrival of the internet, technological advances and extreme economic difficulties are just some of the factors that have spurred the need for lifelong learning in Sahrawi society. In a globalised world, the question arises of whether ancestral knowledge related, for example, to calculating birth dates, caring for goats and camels, conducting the tea ritual, using camel skins, understanding natural cycles or reading clouds is compatible with knowledge about biodiversity, social media, sport, climate change, soil fertility and so on, generating diverse and at times paradoxical concepts. Rebuilding Sahrawi community values by promoting a school for all—young and old, men and women—has been the Sahrawis’ goal ever since their first day of exile and the beginning of their status as a refugee people.

In response to this situation, this chapter presents two training programmes based on the use of photo-narration in an educational environment, highlighting the utility of this practice and reporting the data obtained in two different contexts in terms of the living conditions and type of concerns of the Sahrawis living in each of them. One of the programmes was a personal and professional development course for teachers based on the use of photo-narration and delivered at the Miyik school in the Liberated Territories of Western Sahara. The second was a teacher and student training programme delivered in Algerian territory, where the Sahrawi refugee camps are located, and promoted by the Club de la Esperanza [Club for Hope], which will be discussed in the section on field work at this location. The first directly addressed the issue of education and responsibility as regards landmine prevention in the zone, which contains several war fronts. The second was aimed at instructing teachers on the creation and representation of ideas in interaction with their students to help these latter express their concerns and uncertainties.

The Geographical and Human Context

Context 1: Liberated Territories

A journey through the desert forms an interesting introduction to the network of schools coordinated by the Ministry of Education of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) in the Liberated Territories, whose headquarters are located in the Rabouni camp. The territories not occupied by Morocco (‘abbey’ in Hassaniya Arabic) cover approximately 50,000 km² and represent 25% of the territory of Western Sahara. They are bordered to the north by the desert plateau of Tindouf, Algeria; to the east and south by the Azufal dunes in Mauritania; and to the west by the wall built by Morocco during the 1980s (Fig. 13.1).

Fig. 13.1

Map of the zone

At present, the community’s response to schooling in a nomadic context has been to incorporate a sedentary component that also establishes a dynamic connection between families coping with the constant difficulties that arise. These include the sirocco wind, water shortages, army alerts, lack of electricity and temperatures of 50 ºC.

The Sahrawi people are of Arab-Berber and black African origin. Hassaniya Arabic is their mother tongue and Islam their religion. The ceasefire declared on 6 September 1991 established a United Nations Mission (MINURSO) to preserve the status and designated the Polisario Front as one of the representatives. Teachers today stress that many problems, such as ill health, have become chronic, with students often suffering from dermatological conditions, such as mycosis, pediculosis and scabies, as well as growth disorders due to malnutrition, chronic diarrhoea, parasites or gluten intolerance, which is very common.

Population actions aimed at improving hygiene and access to vaccination programmes, antibiotics and medicines have significantly reduced morbidity and mortality rates in the target population. Nevertheless, many families prefer to live in the Liberated Territories rather than in the refugee camps because these latter form part of the diaspora with no expectation of work and under bureaucratic pressure to regularise or accept the status of occupied territory in their country. In contrast, the Liberated Territories offer a guarantee of employment, and inhabitants engage in activities related to livestock farming or trade with Mauritania, are nomadic depending on the temperature and are guaranteed basic care by the SADR army, which occupies military regions in the zone (Fig. 13.2).

Fig. 13.2

(Source by the authors)

Western Saharan populations under SADR control with madrasas (schools)

Context 2: Sahrawi camps in Algerian Territory

Each Saharawi refugee camp constitutes a wilayah, or district, which contains several villages or dairas. Named after towns in Western Sahara (Laâyoune, Auserd, Boujdour, Smara and Dakhla), the camps are the primary recipients of international cooperation targeting this population. Accommodation in the dairas mainly consists of jaimas (Sahrawi tents) with some adobe buildings. The overall population is around 175,000, but the figure varies according to the source and there is no official public census. Some of the inhabitants have been there since 1975 and the youngest are third generation refugees who have never known their home country. The camps are a fertile ground for events, reflections and ideas for cooperation among the nomadic Sahrawi teachers, who create networks as the only possible means to perform their work and assume responsibility for educating people on how to survive.

Storytellers have emerged in the camps as repositories of their people’s traditions and knowledge. According to Mahmud Awah (2010), in the land of the Sahrawis, where culture is faithfully preserved in the memory of the people and the libraries are humans, when an old man dies, a library dies with him. One way of leveraging the need to tell stories is to hold cooperative learning sessions so that together, students and teachers can contribute to the transmission and renewal of knowledge, enriching identity and improving survival.

Schooling and Teacher Training as the Collective Construction of Social Responsibility

Trained and considered as artists, Saharawi teachers in both contexts show a social and professional commitment to tackling the historical legacy of their people: personal survival and survival of the essential values that make up their identity. To facilitate this goal, the SADR Ministry of Education created the 9 June Teachers’ Centre in order to meet the individual and collective training needs of practising and trainee teachers aged between 19 and 30. Trainee teachers live as weekly boarders (Sunday to Thursday), and 96% are women.

There are different training priorities for teachers with extensive experience of literacy in the trenches and younger ones with a knowledge of languages, social media and so on. Age, gender, expectations and motivation also differ. Schools continue to inspire recognition and respect (including in the study context), are viewed as defenders of identity and employ a traditional teaching model. From the perspective of an occupation within the production system, teachers are not seen merely as caregivers of students while parents work, nor as paid, uncritical transmitters of knowledge.

Saharawi teachers receive a low salary that is not guaranteed and have little time or resources to prepare material, study, meet family needs, attend to visitors, participate in cultural and sports activities, guarantee inclusion or motivate their classes every morning while also supervising attendance, hygiene and nutrition. This creates problems in a State with no guarantee of a sustained civil service, but which needs their involvement and work. Hence, initiatives such as that of the Club de la Esperanza [Club of Hope] are welcomed because they make up for acute deficiencies.

The directors of the Saharawi Teachers’ Centre are aware of the importance of teaching beliefs and how these influence situations and decision-making throughout the teaching and learning process. Therefore, the Centre’s mission is to promote and coordinate training programmes for teachers because at present, a variety of methods are employed. The responsibility of teachers who are starting out in education restricts the power of the school if this is not considered an integral part of life and a learning community. It has been argued that the study of teaching beliefs can render explicit the frameworks of reference that influence how teachers perceive and process information and analyse, make sense of and direct their educational actions (Alarcón et al., 2014). In this respect, the Teachers’ Centre promotes quality actions that enable better coordination and participation of teachers and, secondarily, development workers. In class, teachers reinforce the children’s cultural identity and raise their critical and active awareness, while recognising that their location and context of a ceasefire puts them in constant danger.

To this end, training programmes are provided aimed at professional and artistic development, using intuitive tools that promote representation and communication of their responsibilities and uncertainties in the spaces of survival where they have sought refuge. Important among these systems of representation is photography, which although simple to use, remains a challenge in this context because not all schools in the refugee camps have electricity and so photography is not always possible.

Two Training Programmes Based on Photo-Narration

The proposed activity using information and communication technologies (ICTs) in schools for the nomadic population and in the Sahrawi refugee camps has generated a space for the creation of photo-narrations based on a language that is familiar, personal and liberating. Images and their accompanying narratives have proved valuable in formal and non-formal education alike as a means to preserve memory, understand the present and ensure survival. History must be considered in relation to a plurality of events that form threads and leave traces across the territory (Gimeno & Robles, 2015). Images are replete with language. We know that images are related to verbal language but they transmit messages that words cannot. Jai (1993) has argued that one cannot write without evoking images. When a group of teachers and students consider and discuss an emotion or sensation represented by several projected photographs, this provides an important opportunity for learning what is presented (e.g. affects, meanings) and enables the values of participation and understanding to emerge and contribute intentions and interpretations of the image content (Bautista, 2013). Sahrawi culture is based on its members’ memories rather than on written works. Sahrawi oral narrative, composed almost entirely of stories, is anonymous. Stories in Sahrawi society are generally transmitted within the family, usually from grandparents to grandchildren (Mahmud Awah, 2010). In this respect and in both contexts, photo-narration serving as support for the verbal language of Saharawi teachers formed the basis of the training programmes for the survival of all in general and the improvement of teaching practice in particular, through reflection and debate on their work.

• 1. Field Work in the Nomadic Area

  Salka Salem is a teacher in the Liberated Territories. Every day, she waits for the children to gather round the flag outside the school. Their families are nomads who, for reasons of health, livestock or travel, have pitched their tent in the area, and the children come from miles around to the simple school building named after Sahrawi heroes fallen in war. Her willingness and ability to dialogue with the children who attend reflect a professional teaching experience that includes looking, listening, recreating and constructing knowledge. As an artist in progress, she needs ideas for her classes, but also for the logistics and management of food and safety, for example, and for seeking support to maintain the school. Optimising resources reflects well on the school with its students, their families and the institutions, and helps ensure that the school remains open in the community. It was at such a location that the idea emerged to implement an innovative teaching improvement programme using photo-narration at a school staffed by six teachers and a director.

  We proposed to present poster images concerning landmine prevention, based on material and advice sent previously by officials of the Saharawi Ministry of Education, which could be used for prevention education. The structural and organisational rules of these schools do not differ from those found in the refugee camps in terms of assessment, curriculum, subject timetables, inspection visits or assessment criteria. Part of the timetable is devoted to teaching Islam, especially in the first years of schooling, but language (Arabic and Spanish) and mathematics are the fundamental areas (Ariza, 2016). We asked participants to take photographs that when shared with the group would promote reflection on the part of the teachers, while at the same time describing and analysing their goals in relation to their involvement as teachers in terms of strategies for qualitative improvement in their educational community and their commitment to cooperate in the eradication of mines.

  Thus, photo-narration supported by verbal narrative served two core purposes in the study: as a means to improve teaching, critical and communicative skills, and as a channel for social advocacy, warning and prevention. In this context, posters were selected that would have a direct impact on children but would also contain a message about responsibility for teachers, the military, parents and relatives. Meetings were held with teachers and students alike, to learn their thoughts about the benefits of this training plan and how it would affect them (Fig. 13.3).

  Fig. 13.3

  

  One of the posters proposed to stimulate discussion

  Participants were asked to comment on the posters and then, in a subsequent session, to bring personal images for photo-narration sessions from whatever perspective they liked. The knowledge thus generated would be used to plan action templates with these intervention models. The aim was to take photographs with mobile phones and then to present the images. Previously, we confirmed that the images shown at the photo-narration session would depict details of the surroundings that presented elements of identity and concerns about safety and the future. The participants produced texts and images related to the school building, the classroom, the flag, the blackboard, landscapes and a nearby tent. Narratives were presented at both sessions, and those in Hassaniya Arabic (their first language) were translated. Their work corresponded more to their struggle as a people than to any individual concerns, although anxieties about work and family were also expressed. In this session, the authors of the images were asked to explain their selection before narrating the experiences and beliefs depicted. It proved largely unnecessary to moderate the session. Unlike the other photo-elicitation and photo-narration sessions in teacher training contexts described in previous chapters, the debate generated here fundamentally concerned how to resolve the conflict and find ways to ensure survival, rather than inquiry into the value of the situations, processes and teaching triggered.

  Aspects that would improve working conditions and gratitude for participating in the teacher training programme were frequent in the first sessions. In all instances, the images had an explicit and an implicit motive. The reason for selecting the image might be that it was the one with the best light, and from there the discussion would move on to the elements that reminded participants of family situations in which the parents still lived and how they lived honourably, Saharan proverbs, religious principles, praise of the army and so on. Congratulations, thanks and courtesies gave way to recognition of the situation and even proposals for joint school actions in remembrance practices. Hence, we could classify the interventions according to whether they were courtesies related to the visit or the training programme, explanations of the image, emotional expression or professional practice. Of all these topics, the one that consumed most discussion time was the vindication of their rights. The procedure employed in the photo-narration session using posters led to a description of the conflict, politics or management and the role of the European powers and the UN, supported by images as a context for prevention and collaboration in actions aimed at protection and security. The use of images, aesthetic composition and so on were briefly discussed in a mixture of Hassaniya Arabic and Spanish.

  The participative photo-narration sessions also contributed to literacy in the language of photography and questioning of the value of the representations of reality presented. The teachers saw their role not only as teachers, but also as members of the community and as such, expressed their opinions accordingly. In subsequent sessions, consideration was given to the need to include parents and development workers and to allocate time to work on first aid. At the same time, second-hand mobile phones were obtained so that the students could take photographs and participate in literacy classes on visual language. Participants also requested more innovative proposals for classroom work. Through the creation, revision and analysis of the posters during meetings, the message was established through joint observation and reflection, the central core of the images was assessed and the context and its ethical and aesthetic perspective were included (Fig. 13.4).

  Fig. 13.4

  

  Pictures of the school in the nomadic area, taken by the group of teachers

  This type of participative work in a training programme for nomadic Saharawi teachers proved important as a means to transform theory into practice, given the effect that the strength of their representation and verbalisation of conflicts had on their self-image and on their practice as teachers. They may not have been familiar with the public speaking required by photo-narration, but they were committed to defending their rights. Teachers located in the Liberated Territories are required to discuss, exchange and develop teaching practice with barely any resources. Consequently, sharing narratives offers a useful dialogical strategy to consolidate identity, prepare for and prevent unanticipated emergencies and improve their practice in a hyper-mediatised global culture and where immediacy has become a social pressure.

  The other aspect of the teacher training programme supported by photo-narration was that, as desert nomads, the teachers working in the Liberated Territories then implemented the sessions with their students, encouraging them to select and sequence some of the photographs they had taken. To this end, the teachers raised these questions and suggestions with them:

  How will you explain to your family what you have seen? Say it with an image. We are waiting to hear what you have to say. Describe what you learnt today. Don’t forget that where you live is the entire setting, and you decide on the characters and theme. Tell us how it tastes, smells, sounds or feels on the way to school, or when you play around the tent, when you are looking after the animals, if the goats escape, or when you find water or couscous is waiting for you at home.

  The specific details of their photo-narrations shed light on what is happening. They said whether the posters helped provide a better knowledge of the terrain or what to do in an emergency, such as discovering a mine on the path (Fig. 13.5).

  Fig. 13.5

  

  Image of the outside of the school in the nomadic area, at the start of a new day. Illustration of the texts compiled when pooling images from the posters. Taken by the group of teachers

• 2. Field Work in the Refugee Camps

  The second Saharawi teacher training programme based on photo-narration was delivered in the Saharawi refugee camp of Smara, with the help of Mohamed Moulud, a photographer by training and one of the founding members, together with Ahmed Buyema, of the Club de la Esperanza [Club of Hope]. This association was launched in 2016 with activities and workshops for children to promote creativity, imagination, self-esteem, social skills and abilities (https://www.facebook.com/El-club-dela-esperanza-299313467188715/). Through its connection with the SADR Teachers’ Centre, a theoretical and practical training programme was drawn up aimed at teachers and students in the seventh grade or first year of secondary school. The purpose of the programme was to assess the value of participative photography, highlighting its potential for communication and consolidation of identity and the improvement that this knowledge brings when planning teaching work. To this end, children were encouraged to reflect on their relationship with their surroundings, on themselves and on others in an informal educational context but one endowed with the resources of formal education and the cooperation of the Abda Mohamed school management and its teachers, in the wilayah of Smara.

  In line with the training programme, workshops were based on descriptions, portraits and mini photo-narrations, and the aspects that the teachers assessed most positively were enthusiasm, innovative knowledge, motivation and social impact. Aware of the interest shown by associations of friends of the Saharawi people in Spain, the teachers collaborated by sending them requests for support, enabling them to participate in the campaign by collecting mobile phones. They also engaged in the project, because as one of the teachers said: “We’ve discovered that it’s good for coexistence between colleagues, that you can learn outside, work cooperatively, go and see new realities together, even if they’re as close by as the next dune”. In addition, Mohamed Moulud considered that it was a valuable means to detect problems, from family difficulties to conflicts between children or weaknesses in learning, which were then transmitted to the teachers for further resolution. The workshops were held outside on the sand or indoors in a classroom when the goal was to deliver theoretical knowledge, and they were always held in the afternoon, after school, as a voluntary activity. Besides the teachers, there were never fewer than ten other attendees, all aged between twelve and thirteen (Fig. 13.6).

  Fig. 13.6

  

  Poster for mobile phone collection, for the Club de la Esperanza [Club of Hope] Photography workshop

  The same flexibility as that described for photo-elicitation in earlier chapters was applied in these sessions aimed at perception, analysis, reflection and debate prompted by the different forms of photo-narration. In these training workshops, it was the students who took the photographs and used them to create stories with important characters: the teachers at the school hosting this training programme.

  As Mohamed Moulud observed, the children who attended were able to describe how they lived through photography. We always started with a few minutes devoted to simple technical aspects before moving on to a common subject. For example, as the children leave after school, situations arise such as the ones captured in the photographs shown in Fig. 13.7, taken by Hamdi Mohamed, Wali Salem and Jalil Said, among other students. These photographs create the opportunity for subsequently discussing with their teachers why they run as they leave, feeling lonely in the absence of friends, or the distribution of sandwiches. Values, ideas and emotions are transmitted via the images. The possibility of having a recycled mobile phone allowed participants to construct their own photographic discourse: being able to make as many mistakes as they liked formed the basis for creative activity, because as with a blackboard and chalk, there was no great cost or waste of energy involved in keeping something. In addition, the teachers acquired the knowledge to analyse, discuss and, if they considered it necessary, redirect their teaching practice in the classroom and the school.

  Fig. 13.7

  

  Activity proposed in the workshop: children leaving school after the distribution of sandwiches

  It is difficult to eradicate dominant gender role stereotypes, and in the workshop, it was fundamental for boys and girls to work together. Nevertheless, raising awareness in the educational community of the need for girls to participate outside school hours and in contexts other than school remain challenges to be overcome (Fig. 13.8).

  Fig. 13.8

  

  Source Mohamed Moulud)

  Practical workshop session (

  In their assessment of this training programme in the Sahrawi camps, the participating teachers, students and their families considered it positive for the children to be creating their own images rather than always being portrayed as refugees. The work of production, but not of reproduction, is that of educating the gaze, which subsequently facilitates awareness through the narration of what is represented in a particular way using the language of photography. The gaze can connect practice and narration. We believe that the imagination, determination and commitment of these teachers in terms of inquiry into their practice not only improved school outcomes but also revitalised the curriculum of the Saharawi people. In this case, technology was not the biggest obstacle.

Supporting the School of Resistance

What have these training programmes given to the participating teachers? Among other perceptions, teachers felt encouraged to remain at the school where they worked. At the end of the course, one of the teachers said “It has been a good experience to be able to talk and communicate through the photographs we took and in doing so, to feel that what we talked about while looking at the images was very important to others. This gives us the strength to keep doing what we do, and for other teachers in these remote areas to feel that telling stories with photographs is like a bucket for getting water from the well. It’s not just that we lack material things; often we feel burnt out with no ideas. We welcome ideas that help us move forwards without rejecting our culture and our resistance”. Another teacher assessed the training as follows: “It’s necessary to talk together to share and analyse what we do, and that’s why I liked sequencing the photographs while saying why I did it that way. I also liked it because training for the teachers here shouldn’t just be about technological specialisation or language courses, but should require each and every one of us to think together. The photo-narration sessions and the trips to the Teachers’ Centre were fundamental, as was experiencing these initiatives in which personal and joint effort brings new perspectives that will last for a long time”.

These two assessments refer to both training programmes using photo-narration to promote inquiry into and reflection on teaching in order to improve the participants’ teaching practice under the difficult conditions in which they find themselves. The collaborative production of images has proved a fundamental tool to stimulate discussion of conflict and generate answers particular to a population in need of an education for survival. We have developed an approach that combines photography with the accumulated verbal legacy of the history of the Saharawi people, using photo-narration as a tool to document and acquire information and raise awareness of risks. From a dialogical perspective, these training narratives have heightened interest in the preventive aspect of education, in the communication of oneself to others and in the associated element of creativity in contexts of uncertainty. In sum, this chapter has sought to contribute to the recognition of photo-narration and its critical and expressive potential in educational environments in extreme situations, to explore ways of seeing in teacher training, to disseminate the participants’ efforts, to continue the work in this school of resistance and to express our hope that it may be well received in other contexts to promote a culture of peace.