Senegal has a population of 12 million inhabitants. Today, nearly one in two Senegalese lives in town, and one in four in the Dakar peninsula. The rural depopulation trend is still going strong as peasant families’ socio-economic conditions remain very poor. In town, industry and services can’t provide jobs for all these people. For lack of future prospects, many Senegalese risk their lives trying to reach the coasts of Europe. Since schools are unable to offer a professional future to all young Senegalese, craft industries have become the major training school and main source of employment in urban surroundings: apprenticeship is a way to provide these young people with a future and contribute to the development of the Senegalese economy. Craft businesses represent a sustainable and concrete answer to the problems of unemployment and the struggle against poverty: they train young people who are excluded from the school system and often illiterate, provide jobs well-suited to the local market, promote the cultural heritage and the country’s resources, create new jobs and thus offer an alternative to emigration.

Even though the woodwork craft industry is already a major sector of the Senegalese economy, it needs to be strengthened. In Senegal, the very competitive economic environment demands shorter and shorter production deadlines with mandatory bank guarantees and complex administrative procedures. The newly created professional organizations are still not strong enough to defend the industry’s interests effectively. Moreover the training of apprentices and craftsmen is done on-the-job and doesn’t provide them with the level of qualification required.

In relying on the woodwork craft industry’s ability to fight poverty, Frères des Hommes and Kora-PRD are investing in the reinforcement of the development of professional woodwork organizations and of training of their apprentices. In 2007, we set up a schedule of activities for 2008-2010 together, based on the results of the July 2003-July 2006 program. This is an opportunity for us to look back on the work done and its main outcome. In this special review you’ll find perspectives on and testimonies from the program we have been running with these small-scale joiners over the last three years.

The woodwork craft industry’s development program set up by Frères des Hommes and Kora-PRD between July 2003 and July 2006, has reached the two goals that had been set: improving the training provided by master craftsmen with evening classes; strengthening three professional joiners’ organizations by getting them involved in the organization of the training and by initiating a marketing strategy for handicrafts on the local market. We have thus contributed to the craftsmen’s increased productivity and to the greater social role of master craftsmen in the training and social integration of the youth and we have actually fought poverty.

Classes to complete on-the-job training in workshops

These classes have allowed small-scale joiners to give their young apprentices, often uneducated and vulnerable boys, further tools to help with their economic and social integration. The syllabus of the courses complemented the know-how handed down by master craftsmen in the workshops. The latter were responsible for the organization of the training: their active participation reinforced the global weight of the industry which can now measure up to government administrations in its negotiations.

The training sessions were offered to apprentices of more than 250 workshops, members of three professional organizations: the Diocko economic interest group in Dakar, the woodwork professional craftsmen’s group (GAPB) in Thiès and the Guinaw Rail craftsmen and entrepreneurs’ association (AAMEGR). The Diocko group in Dakar had already run a training project with Kora-PRD and Frères des Hommes between 2000 and 2003; it was thus able to share its experience with the other two organizations. Moreover, AAMEGR is a union of craftsmen of different trades and this made it possible to include training for metal joiners.

620 apprentices trained in three years

The training sessions have been made up of different kinds of classes, organized in a way to meet the needs of apprentices and master craftsmen.

Courses in Arithmetic and Geometry applied to woodwork have given the apprentices basic knowledge, notably mastery in arithmetic through learning measures and volumes or use of calculators. During these classes, they have also learnt how to make quotes: estimation of the quantity of wood needed, of the time required for production and of cost prices. A few master craftsmen or apprentices at the end of their apprenticeship have received training in management in order to learn about the legal structure of small-scale industries in Senegal, the writing of reports or the search for partnerships.

Technical drawing classes have been very successful. The teachers showed the apprentices how to express themselves through drawing and how to be more accurate in the cutting of wood or iron. The question of drawing is paramount in woodwork. Good knowledge of drawing methods to within one millimeter avoids wasting raw materials, allows the production of more products with the same dimensions, the development of creation skills based on sketches, the reading of architects’ or geometricians’ blueprints. All this knowledge is required to meet market demands. Sculpture classes have proved most popular: the skills gained by the apprentices are valued as they allow them to meet the strong demand for carved furniture. In his workshop, the trained young apprentice thus acquires a better recognized.

Practical work courses have come to complete the theoretical courses: apprentices were able to experiment with different techniques of assembly and manufacturing new products, such as school or office furniture, that correspond to the markets that joiner craftsmen have not yet fully invested in. Working together was an opportunity to improve production organization techniques: supplies, preparation and follow-up of orders, distribution of tasks in the workshop to be able to produce on a large scale while meeting deadlines. All these courses have given the apprentices skills that add value to the training given by master craftsmen in the workshops.

Finally, since Frères des Hommes and Kora-PRD’s first aim was the young apprentices’ social and professional integration and their personal development, the training was supplemented with a lot of reading and writing classes in French. This was meant to make the young more able, after their apprenticeship, to open their own workshop getting support from the contacts they had made and the skills they had developed throughout their training.

By supporting that kind of training, we want our action to be part of a larger strategy to allow craftsmen to have a part in the transformation and the social and economic development of Senegalese society. For instance, Kora-PRD has studied access to the market, so that craftsmen will have better knowledge of the opportunities and requirements of the market and thus adapt to and meet them.

Master craftsmen, families and apprentices together in training committees

Since it is essential for populations eventually to manage their own training themselves, notably by getting some public funding, Frères des Hommes and Kora-PRD have decided that implementation of the training sessions would be managed at the grassroots level by training committees. They are made up of craftsmen, teachers, apprentices’ parents and several apprentices; they are the link between Kora-PRD and the trainees. They are entrusted with quite a few tasks: recruiting apprentices and teachers, finding venues for the training, taking part in the training’s management and in the follow-up of the courses as well as in the follow-up of the apprentices. The committees, supported by Kora-PRD at the beginning, are now active in structuring small-scale handicraft industries.

Training courses, a strong asset for professional organizations in their lobbying of public policies

With this program, Kora-PRD has striven hard to get the appropriate public administration to take responsibility for professional training. That effort has led to the setting-up of the first professional organization at the national level in Senegal, the national organization of wood professionals (ONP-Bois). It brings together the professional organizations of nine Senegalese towns, and some of the organizations that supported the training program are members of it. ONP-Bois is the backbone of the wood industry and defends craftsmen’s interests. One of its major demands is that professional training be the responsibility of some public policy. That’s why ONP-Bois is now negotiating at the highest level with Senegalese national authorities. The advocacy is made easier by the training already implemented by Kora-PRD and Frères des Hommes. Indeed the experiment we have carried out proves that it is not only possible, but also profitable, for Senegal to set up good-quality professional training for its unskilled young people.

2008: renewed commitment of small-scale joiners in ONP-Bois

The setting-up of ONP-Bois and the ability of professional organizations to manage training sessions for apprentices are concrete results which can be used as stepping stones by the Kora- PRD and Frères des Hommes’ 2008-2011 activity project. The new project, whose funding is expected from 2008 on, will strengthen the implementation of technical training programs to make sure that they are long-lasting. It will then be able to have a focus on a wider objective, i.e. consolidation of ONP-Bois, that civic professional agent. We wish to expand the training system to three new locations while strengthening it in the existing locations, and we’ll be holding to our initial objective which was to place training committees at the core of the process in order to let the people concerned take charge eventually. The second – and main – aspect of the project aims to give ONP-Bois the means to strengthen its foundations (expansion of its base, drafting of an apprenticeship charter in order to lead to more homogeneous practices, surveys on social welfare) and to weigh in on the national debate for effective implementation of an industrial policy to support the woodworking business (training, social welfare, promotion of the market and of local products).