Country: Dakar- Senegal.
Context: In the past few years, the Senegalese government has allocated fewer and fewer resources to the educational field, causing progressive youth exclusion from the educational system. The intervention area is the Dakar’s District, particularly Guile- Tapee’s and Guediawaye: those areas have been affected by a dramatic population growth, a relentless exodus characterized by young people leaving countryside and finally, a hostile climate situation. In this context of impoverishment, school drop-out is an incumbent national issue that is typical of girls and female teenagers. There are at least three factors that are fundamentally important to be mentioned: sexism (males are thought to be the only ones worth of an education), child marriages occurring in order to facilitate an early entrance for women in the workforce and finally, rather scarce opportunities for non-formal educational projects to be implemented. These three, altogether, prevent girls from accessing the school system and consequently affect early school leaving and analphabetism rates.
Donor: Emilia-Romagna.
Period: April ’14- April ’15
Area of interest: socio-educational women empowerment
Local Partners: Association Sénégalaise pour le Développement des Organisations de Base (ASDOB), Fédération des Groupements de Promotion Féminine (FGPF), Inspection de l’Education et de la Formation de Guédiawaye (IEF), Comité Nationale de Femmes Travailleuses aderente al Syndicat CNTS – Confédération Nationale des Travailleurs du Sénégal.
Italian Partners: Nexus CGIL (capofila), ARCS–Arci Cultura e Sviluppo, Comune di Ravenna, Associazione Senegalese Cheikh Anta Diop.
General Aim: to promote women and female children empowerment through education, formation, the management of income generation activities, and health education to the benefit of Guédiawaye’s and Guele-Tapée’s Women Organizations.
Specific aim: to promote and support Women’s Organization educative and professional formation as well as to raise women’s awareness regarding their own rights and protection.
Recipients: 10 girls, aged between 17 and 21. They are resident in Dakar although originally from rural areas, and have all experienced abuses and lived in precarious conditions. An average of at least 20 girls/ women will benefit from the front-office services in a planned 6-month-activity. Two internally chosen people will be formed for the front-office purposes. One supervisor and 30 managers will be hired, according to their experiences in alphabetization and women formation. 100 analphabet young women or early dropouts, 100 women from Women Organizations/ GPF benefit from alphabetization activities, AGR support and reproductive health, work rights and drop out awareness’ scheme.
Indirect Recipients: women’s families, companies employing them, CNTS, overall population (about 75.000)
Project’s summary: the project aims to fight against poverty feminization, and, on the base of local need’s evaluations, it offers to implement strategies and policies aiming to reduce school drop-out as well as improve non-formal education. As occurred previously, EducAid is working in partnership with Nexus, ARCS, ASDOB and CNTS in order to give attention to non-formal education and professional formation for disadvantaged girls. By drawing on recent experiences, the activities will focus on the alphabetization and rights’ promotion with the expectation of recipients’ future full autonomy, by:
- the alphabetization in national language and French;
- support and promotion of Women Organizations;
- development of Income Generation Activities;
- work-rights counseling;
- networking between Italy and Senegal;
- health education and drop-out awareness.
Expected results: 100 alphabetized women from Women Organizations. 100 youngsters formed on local languages, French and medical prevention as well as calculation techniques and problem-solving skills. Deeper awareness about their rights and capacity to protect them from being undermined, thanks to syndicate’s aid.