Cate Gutowski, Laidlaw Scholar
Brown University, English and Political Science, Class of 2027
Leadership in Action Dates: June 22, 2026 – July 31, 2026
Location: Bibliothèques Sans Frontières (BSF), Dakar, Sénégal
Introduction
In my second summer as a Laidlaw Scholar in 2026, I spent six weeks in Dakar, Senegal for my Leadership in Action project, working as a short-term intern with the NGO Bibliothèques Sans Frontières (BSF). Working in their office in Dakar, I supported BSF’s mission to expand access to knowledge, education resources, and technologies like their solar-powered, offline Wi-Fi hotspots (a.k.a. Ideas Cubes) in schools and communities both in Senegal and across Africa by carrying out individual research projects, providing support on English communications, participating in creative strategy meetings about the development of BSF’s future projects in Africa, and attending partnership meetings with BSF’s current and prospective international NGO collaborators and local government representatives.
Fundamentally, my Leadership in Action project directly addressed two UN Sustainable Development Goals:
1. SDG 4: Quality Education. BSF’s mission in Africa is in large part working to ensure that a lack of electricity and internet infrastructure, as well as a lack of rich educational content and pedagogical support for teachers, does not continue to contribute to a lack of learning opportunities for students. My work researching how past EdTech initiatives in Africa effectively grew in scale supported BSF’s goal to expand its educational open-source Digital Learning Hub model from Senegal to other countries. The literature review I wrote about the research-backed effectiveness of structured pedagogy (enseignement explicite) as a teaching approach that will potentially be integrated into lesson plans in KProf—BSF’s AI-powered pedagogical app for teachers in its DLH partner schools—also directly supported BSF’s work to ensure that the content they provide to teachers and students actively improves learning outcomes.
2. SDG 10: Reduced Inequalities. Another key part of BSF’s mission with its Digital Learning Hubs in Senegal is to help bridge the digital divide for rural, under-resourced communities like the schools it supports in Kedougou that do not yet have reliable access to electricity or internet connection. My work conceptualizing community employability hubs for youth with digital infrastructure and skill-building courses this summer supported SDG 10 by conceptualizing ways BSF could expand its reach and focus on reducing economic inequalities for youth within the informal economy.
As I elaborate on below, throughout my time at BSF, I faced challenges and gained insights into the complexities of decentralized NGO work in the world of international development. Working in a fast-paced, entirely French-speaking office also challenged me to develop the leadership skills of adaptability, problem-solving, communication, listening, and cultural humility. Ultimately, I feel very grateful for this Leadership in Action experience because it has made me much more comfortable living outside my comfort zone and connecting with people who have different backgrounds from my own.
Summary of Work and Deliverables to BSF
Over the course of my six weeks, my role at BSF was focused mainly on strategic research, donor mapping, and participating in key internal and external meetings. I produced the following deliverables to BSF to support their regional operations:
- On the EdTech Landscape in Africa
- A 26-page research report analyzing the history, implementation, and scaling strategies of major EdTech initiatives (e.g., Orange Foundation Digital Schools, Instant Network Schools, Camara Education Digital Learning Centres, One Laptop per Child, and SMART Boards).
- A 10-minute presentation delivered in French at the DLH Vision Afrique strategic meeting at BSF, synthesizing the literature on scaling EdTech and the successful models I researched.
- On the Education Strategy of the World Bank
- A 16-page literature review on structured pedagogy (enseignement explicite), covering its research-backed historical foundations, its development in the francophone world, the evidence used by the World Bank to support its implementation, and the main critiques against its use.
- A 24-page synthesis of the World Bank’s educational strategy and funding of projects in Africa, including its institutional structure, education portfolio, and strategic priorities.
- On the U.S. Funding Landscape
- A database of 92 U.S. foundations and corporations funding education in Africa, including a prioritized shortlist of 26 organizations most closely aligned with BSF’s work.
- A companion user guide detailing these 26 priority donors and identifying the process for grant applications and establishing relationships with BSF for each.
- Youth Employability Community Hubs
- A six-page concept note proposing a preliminary model for youth employability hubs, detailing the proposed physical and digital infrastructure, human support structure, community activities, and potential success metrics.
- Supplementary Projects
- A contact directory of embassies and international development agencies in Dakar.
- Revisions to some of BSF’s French presentation materials and English written communications.
- An initial two-page memo summarizing my observations on BSF’s communication strategies.
In addition, throughout the internship, I participated in internal strategy meetings and project discussions related to BSF’s educational programs and the strategy of Digital Learning Hubs. I spoke one-on-one with the Director of Development and Communications at Libraries Without Borders (the United States branch of BSF) to seek feedback on the database of American donors that I developed in my research. I also had the opportunity to participate in meetings and calls with external partners and stakeholders in global education, including UNICEF, the World Bank, the Institut de la Francophonie pour l'éducation et la formation (IFEF), and the Norwegian Refugee Council Nigeria. Finally, I accompanied the BSF Senegal team on a field visit to the future Maison des Arts Visuels in Dakar, in preparation for the deployment of an Ideas Box in partnership with the Ministry of Culture in Senegal.
Challenges Faced
During my time with BSF in Dakar, I felt very supported by my supervisor, coworkers, and flatmate, but I also faced many challenges, including navigating a new organizational structure and cooperative NGO environment, cultural immersion in a francophone context, self-directed research, and power outages.
The Decentralized and Fragmented International NGO Sector: One of the most surprising challenges I encountered working with BSF was the way that we had to navigate the highly decentralized nature of the international NGO sector that often leads to redundancies in the work different organizations are independently completing. This became most evident to me during an in-person meeting BSF had with the Institut de la Francophonie pour l’éducation et la formation (IFEF) in Dakar. As I wrote about in my blog post for that week, it was simultaneously fascinating and slightly disheartening to watch BSF and IFEF realize how much overlap existed in their ongoing projects—from producing native-language studio content to independently developing pedagogical AI assistants for teachers—without ever having known of the other’s work, despite being based just fifteen minutes from each other in Dakar. However, it was encouraging to witness both teams seek to overcome this challenge by immediately being willing to integrate their research and establish lines of communication to prioritize their mutual goals to improve students’ educational outcomes.
French Language Immersion: At first, I was very intimidated by the prospect of working in the fast-paced, entirely French-speaking BSF office, where I could not fall back on English when talking to all but two of my coworkers if a translation escaped me. I constantly had to overcome my fear of making errors in conversation in order to participate in meetings and connect with my coworkers. Outside of work, I also rarely encountered anyone who spoke more than a word of English, and a huge goal of mine going into the summer was to improve my confidence making mistakes in French without any option to switch to English. Six weeks in Dakar working and traveling with groups on the weekends gave me many opportunities to do just that, and over time, I gained a lot more confidence in my professional French language skills. The culmination of this for me was giving my presentation on my EdTech research at the end of July, fielding the questions I was asked by BSF education development experts, and receiving feedback that I managed to provide valuable and new information to BSF that will be useful as they continue to develop their strategy for expanding the reach of Digital Learning Hubs.
Self-Directed Work: With many competing commitments and a tight schedule as Director of BSF Africa, my supervisor Matthieu was often in back-to-back meetings or out of the office, sometimes for entire days. Several of my coworkers also were frequently traveling for work or coming in and out from missions throughout the summer. This meant that when I wasn’t participating in meetings, my day-to-day work was mainly self-directed. I had to learn how to proactively ask for clarifications and feedback from Matthieu and hold myself accountable to finish projects throughout the summer, so that all my work was not overwhelmingly piled up at the end of July. In this process, I became a lot more confident working on independent research and staying organized balancing several long-term projects at once, even though in some ways it did still feel like a sprint to the finish polishing up my final deliverables.
Power Outages: Another challenge for me this summer that I want to touch on was learning how to adapt to the unpredictable local infrastructure, since electricity outages throughout Dakar and water shortages in my apartment building specifically were frequent occurrences that impacted my work. I learned to take it in stride when I received an 8 a.m. call from Matthieu that there was no electricity in the office or a 5:30 p.m. text from my flatmate that the power was out at home and adjust my work environment according—working from home on mornings when the office had no electricity and opting to stay late at the office to finish my work on days when I knew there would be no power back at my apartment. The unpredictability of my work environment definitely taught me to be more patient and adaptable in my approach to getting work done.
Leadership Skills Developed
The challenges I encountered in my work pushed me to improve my character holistically as a leader, particularly in developing skills related to the dimensions of courage, accountability, collaboration, and humility.
Courage for me in the context of working with BSF meant leaning into discomfort and asking for help when I felt out of my depth in my knowledge of French or the humanitarian field. A specific example that comes to mind of a time I had to exercise courage was when my supervisor, not understanding a complex technical question in English during a meeting with the Norwegian Refugee Council Nigeria, threw the question to me to field, and I had to rely on my background knowledge of BSF’s operational process in Senegal based on the talking points I had absorbed from hearing BSF’s normal presentations in French in order to accurately respond in the moment. Over six weeks, I developed the muscle of being open with my mistakes in French and internalizing feedback, and I learned to trust myself to communicate professionally giving my presentation and participating in meetings even when uncomfortable, especially when given the opportunity to be in rooms with BSF’s partners in Dakar.
In terms of accountability, given that almost all of the work I produced this summer was independent, I had to make sure to stay on top of my work and take initiative to ensure I knew clearly what was being asked of me. I improved in my ability to set and stick to my own deadlines in order to complete each independent project by the end of July—whether it was my research on EdTech solutions like the Digital Learning Hub, enseignement explicite, the education strategy of the World Bank, or U.S. private funding for education in Africa.
Even though the work I produced was independent, I feel as though I became a better collaborator in the meetings that I was invited to participate in throughout the summer. I feel I truly learned the value of being a fly on the wall in these meetings, getting to sit at the corner of the table in meetings with organizations like UNICEF or the World Bank and listen to humanitarian and pedagogical experts exchange knowledge. Working alongside the dedicated staff of BSF also taught me by example how to be a coworker who is always willing to work late and take on whatever assignment is asked of me. I learned the importance of having a resilient mindset and gracefully pivoting when faced with rejection by spending hours with the BSF team preparing for the final rounds of a competitive research grant throughout the summer and advancing to the top 15 out of over 800 applicants, only to fall short at the last hurdle of a 25-minute interview with the selection committee. Sharing meals and snacks with the team at work and getting drinks after work also showed me how to be social and bring fun to a workplace, and I am grateful for how my coworkers made me feel like part of their community in such a short period of time.
Finally, my experience in Dakar also taught me a lot more about cultural humility. If I had to say there was a single skill I developed most from my LiA project, I would probably say listening. Overall, there was so much for me to learn about BSF’s work and Senegalese culture, but in addition to that experience, two specific work-related examples come to mind. The first is one I wrote about over the summer when I was reflecting on the employability hubs for youth that we were conceptualizing as a new BSF project: I had to reevaluate my Western perspective on the informal economy to be able to understand that what likely would be most helpful for young people looking for economic stability would likely have to begin with an entrepreneurial, community-based training approach. Another moment of learning from listening I remember from our site visit to the new, under-construction Maison des arts visuelles in Dakar, where we spoke to local government officials who described their rigorous education backgrounds and qualifications to be working in the Ministry of Culture: this to me was an important reminder that ‘international’ development is really best led by highly educated local professionals already successfully directing work in their own communities with all the resources available.
Final Thoughts and Thank-Yous
My six weeks in Dakar this summer reaffirmed my commitment to education, policy, and nonprofit work on the global scale, and I am incredibly grateful to have received the opportunity to live for a short time in a city that serves as such a hub of the international humanitarian sector. I would like to thank the Laidlaw Scholars Foundation for their generous support, as well as Grace Argo and K Yin from the Brown University Laidlaw Scholars Program and Swearer Center for Public Service for all of their help and guidance of my research and Leadership in Action project over the past two years.
Because BSF does not traditionally offer this type of short-term internship, I was so grateful they made an exception in allowing me to join them in their office in Dakar and generously offered me so many meaningful opportunities for me to participate in research, communications, and strategy meetings to expand education tools to schools and communities in their work across Africa. I am especially grateful for the trust and guidance given to me by my LiA supervisor, BSF Africa Director Matthieu Gauttier, as well as the mentorship of Elodie Michel in helping me connect to the humanitarian sector in Dakar, without both of whom none of this summer experience would have been possible.
If you'd like to read more about my week-to-week experiences in Senegal, you can to visit my weekly blog posts here:
- Week 1 in Dakar, Senegal
- Week 2 in Dakar, Senegal
- Week 3 in Dakar, Senegal
- Week 4 in Dakar, Senegal
- Week 5 in Dakar, Senegal
- Week 6 in Dakar, Senegal