By Patrick FORT (AFP)
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4 hours earlier in World.
It has display screens covering art, history, dinosaurs, nuclear energy, craftwork and music as well as live animals, for it is likewise a zoo.
Its clients is likewise varied, including visitors who have actually trekked to the capital Niamey from across the country, school groups, well-off foreign tourists and street urchins.
The cultural gem of the world’s poorest nation, the 24- hectare (59- acre) museum makes it through on a spending plan that for abundant equivalents is the comparable to money found down the back of the sofa.
” It’s Niger’s mirror, its social and cultural reflection,” stated its director, Haladou Mamane, happily checking off its strengths in culture, history, archaeology, palaeontology … not forgetting the zoo area, “part of a multi-disciplinary tradition.”
” Here, every Nigerien, despite their background, can gain insights about the country,” stated Mamane, noting that lots of people in Niger have actually never been to school.
Hot and arid, located in the heart of the Sahel, Niger ranks the lowest amongst 189 countries on the UN’s Human Development Index. Per capita income is simply $1,040(855 euros) annually– just over $2.5 each day, according to the World Bank.
Contributing to the problem is a debilitating jihadist revolt. Two, in truth– one coming from the southeast, from Nigeria, and one from the southwest, from Mali.
The state provides the museum with a yearly aid of 327 million CFA francs ($610,000 or 500,000 euros), and earnings from the meagre entryway charge of 50 CFA francs covers almost a third of expenses.
– Street kids’ museum –
Before the pandemic, it received more than 100,000 visitors per year, many of them so-called talibe kids.
These are children who are special to West Africa– their parents hand them to a kind of Islamic school, where they are supposed to learn the Koran.
One of the most popular locations of the museum is its zoo
Issouf SANOGO, AFP
However they generally invest their days asking in the dusty streets with a metal receptacle strung around their neck, and numerous find the museum is a terrific escape.
One such was 12- year-old Ismael Mariama, who after playing on the slides and seesaws viewed a large lion taking an afternoon nap.
” I came to see the animals. I paid 50 francs,” he stated, outfitted in worn, grubby clothing.
” I came from Yantala,” a rundown district in northwestern Niamey, “to come and see the animals, the monkey, the lions, the crocodiles,” he stated.
Street children at the National Museum of Niger
Issouf SANOGO, AFP
He added that he had actually been to the museum’s area on Nigerien craftwork and was interested in the leather shoes.
The craftsmens come from all over this ethnically diverse nation– a sign of “nationwide unity,” said Mamane.
” It’s a bit tough with the coronavirus, however the museum is a great thing for us,” stated Ali Abdoulaye, a leatherworker.
Sarcosuchus imperator, an 11 m (36- feet)- long crocodile, is the zoo’s pride and happiness
Issouf SANOGO, AFP
” Nowadays, craftsmens are losing out to less expensive Chinese products– however you buy a (Chinese) purse, and it falls apart after a couple of days.”
A few metres (backyards) from the museum’s main hall is a star destination– the skeletal remains of 3 monsters from the Age of the Dinosaurs.
They consist of Sarcosuchus imperator, an 11 m (36- feet) -long crocodile, whose fossil was discovered in the Agadez area by a French palaeontologist, Philippe Taquet.
– Transformation –
The museum, founded right before Niger acquired independence from France in 1960, is planning on a repair and an expansion next year with the assistance of worldwide contributions.
As in lots of museums around the globe, it seeks to sponsors for exhibits.
The museum’s zoo has 111 species– a significant job next year intends to improve life for caged animals
Issouf SANOGO, AFP
A show on uranium, Niger’s outstanding mineral wealth, is funded by the French company Orano, formerly Areva, whose subsidiaries run two mines in the south of the nation.
Beside it is an exhibition on oil, which has actually just recently been discovered in Niger. The display screen, which includes an enormous model of a refinery in Zinder, southern Niger, has been moneyed by the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC).
The museum guarantees that once the building work is total, the 111 types in the zoo will enjoy “enhanced living conditions”.
