Senegal, a country faced with harsh conditions and structural changes imposed by international organisations since the 1970s. We now see a very high growth of poverty accompanied by reduced life-spans, lack of vital resources, more and more exclusion and a high rate of illeteracy.This decomposition of the population’s quality of life is particularly evident in rural areas where the number of young people with low or no levels of education have increased significantly. Disillusioned by the hard working conditions in the countrysides, these youth try their luck in urban centers where they find themselves financially neglected and socially excluded.

Confronted with this actuality, MPGU, local partner of Frères des Hommes, founded in 1985 out of several small peasant organisations which today includes 4000 members of 42 groups, decided to attack a major challenge for its members and their families : giving back hope for agreeable life and revenues in their villages thanks to adapted education and professional training opportunities, which on the long-term should increase profitability of agriculture and craftsmanship. This development project was put in place by peasant communities, basing themselves on studies undertaken by MPGU regarding the social, economic and human conditions in the Thiès region. Some significant data coming out of these studies :

• 60% of the population is less then 20 years old
• 76.2% of women and 60% of men are illiterate
• a large and un countable number of uneducated people have moved to the big cities in hopes of finding a means of survival

Elsewhere, more technical studies on inventory of arable land (access to land, arable surface...), local artisanry, and surveys of internal market needs (lower costs, modernized technology...) were also undertaken. Confronted with these difficult analyses of human factors but in a region with high economic and social potential, MPGU imagined a program focussed not only on training and education, but also on the economic and social reintegration of young people. MPGU hopes to offer technical skills which can allow access to jobs or enable creation of small businesss, as well as the means of reintegrating their communities. Actually, exclusion is a relatively new phenomenon in Africa and Senegal, where community solidarity weaved a sustainable web that maintained each individual’s attachment to the group.

This project supported by Frères des Hommes France and Italy will include the erection of a 16 hectare training center, the dispense of practical training and assistance in the reinsertion of participants. The beneficiaries will be prioritary young women and men (15 to 30 years) of rural descendance, little or not at all educated. During the first two years (2003-2005), nearly 400 individuals will be trained (40 students per three-month cycle of 7 hours a day, 5 days a week). As well, roughly 250 adults, farmers and artisans, wishing additional skills can follow specialised and timely one to three-week courses. Courses will be headed by professional instructors competent in French and Wolof. The training center will include ten classrooms, a dormitory, a reading hall, a cafeteria and a kitchen. Woodworking, metalworking, shoemaking and seamstry workshops as well as 2 stables, 2 goat farms, 6 rain water basins and 2 stock shops will also be on site in order to assure practical apprenticeship and simulate real job training.

The main training courses will be centered on: agriculture (cultivation methods, disease identification and use of organic treatments...), breeding (animal anatomy, feed and healthcare, veterinary assistance...), Marketing of agricultural and breeding produce (processing and canning techniques, cattle feed production, hygiene controls and regulations ...), artisanry (woodworking, metallurgy, leatherwork, weaving...), and masonry. These courses will be adapted according to needs, reading, accounting, networking, market studies ... Most learning will be practical (75%), adapted (language, equipment and materials with which participants are comfortable), and based on existing knowledge with an accent on modernisation, innovation, and best use of local resources. Theory will mainly be instructed in order to obtain successful results on the practical field. Otherwise MPGU have wished right from the start an immersion of the training center in the local environment in order to recognize peasant individuality and tighten the bonds between the young people and their families. Thus, a close collaboration between instructors, families and students will be necessary in order to transfer knowledge that will most benefit and develop family industries. All these initiatives aim to support rural young and old in their fight against poverty and the innovation of profit producing opportunities. On a short term basis, thanks to education and training, beneficiaries will participate in social and economic restructuring. On a more sustainable basis, the growth of small businesses in rural areas that these beneficiaries will themselves create will improve family income, purchasing power and living conditions.