What school for the BaYaka?

In the Republic of the Congo, a network of schools founded in 2006 have been specifically developed to educate BaYaka children. Run by Catholic missionaries (ASPC, “Association des Spiritains du Congo”) and supported primarily by UNICEF, ORA (Observer, Réflechir, Agir) schools serve as a stepping stone for integrating BaYaka children into public schools. This educational system explicitly seeks to provide BaYaka children with educational experiences free from discrimination from their farmer (Bilo) neighbours. However BaYaka pedagogy, social relationships, foraging activities, and cultural and spiritual beliefs are in contrast with what is learned through ORA pedagogy. ORA’s curriculum structure and the cultural values transmitted in the classroom seem then at odds with BaYaka children’s forest learning and lifeways. In this video, the two animators of the ORA school of Enyelle explain the challenges posed by the education of Bayaka children. Their discourse highlights the contradictions and paradoxes of such classroom learning in terms of respect for Bayaka rights, values and needs.

Filmed in March and November 2018 in Enyelle (Likouala department, Republic of the Congo) during anthropological visits on behalf of ‘Order of Malta France’ for a healthcare project for the Bayaka of the Likouala.

This short ethnographic film is associated to the following scientific paper written by four anthropologists and a previous ORA coordinator in the Likouala: Bombjaková D, Lew-Levy S, Duda R, Loubelo C, Lewis J. BaYaka education: from the forest to the ORA (Observer, Réflechir, Agir) classroom. Submitted to Hunter-Gatherer Research. The author of the film thanks the participants of the video, notably François Mozanda and Abdelkarim Abega, as well as Sheina Lew-Levy and Alice Vittoria for their feedbacks and comments.

Camera, sound & editing: Romain Duda