Support the Mepham Family in Dakar, Senegal

On July 22nd, 2022, family Mepham, Sam, Yolanda and Nahla moved to live and work in Dakar, Senegal.

Located in West Africa, Senegal is a fascinating country with a majority Muslim population (94%), a significant French influence and political stability in a region of Africa defined by coups.

Sam has started working at Dakar Academy (https://www.dakar-academy.org/), an International Christian School that predominantly serves families working as missionaries in West Africa while also open to the broader (non-christian) community. He is the middle school teacher on the West Campus. Yolanda is initially focused on settling in and looking after our wee champion Nahla, before she will look to find opportunities in her field, with marginalized young women.

For a while now, we have both felt excited and driven to live in this part of the world and were actively looking for opportunities. As a family, our prayer has been that we would be willing to go wherever God would lead and use us. So when a position at Dakar Academy opened up, we felt peaceful that this was our next step and jumped at the opportunity!

We plan for Sam’s work at the school to be our anchor point for serving and building community, but we also hope for this to be just one part of our purpose in Dakar.

Sam’s past work experience has been in the Community Development sector, supporting marginalized young men through running and overseeing sports and empowerment programs. He hopes to continue this in Dakar and is looking for opportunities outside work to connect with young men in the community, through sports programs or by joining a football team.

Yolanda’s work background has been centered around supporting women who have experienced a form of Modern Day Slavery or Forced Marriage. Most recently, Yolanda managed a therapeutic program in Melbourne that housed and supported these young women. We are aware there is a lot of work in this area in Dakar, so once settled, Yolanda will network and look for opportunities. We are not sure exactly what this will look like - but we are excited to find out!

Come on the journey with us!

If you would like to be on our mailing list, to support us in prayer, or financially support us, please flick an e-mail to [email redacted] (or donate here).

Financially, Dakar Academy provides us with housing and a monthly stipend (enough to cover some basic costs). However, we are still looking for support to be financially stable over the next two years. If this is something you would like to support, we would be so appreciative! A one-off donation is amazing! Or monthly support (to help us have some reliable and predictable income) would be incredibly helpful also (e-mail above).

Thank you!

Ps. We would love you to come visit us in Dakar! :)