USAID provides support to disadvantaged children in Senegal

Girls and boys in the village of Mboumba receive food and school supplies from USAID at their Koranic school to help them learn under suitable conditions. Photo: R. Nyberg, USAID

MBOUMBA, December 13, 2006 -- Thousands of young Muslim students in Senegal are getting a warm meal every day under a pilot support activity benefiting Koranic schools near the country’s northern border with Mauritania.

The 18-month, $307,000 project is helping improve students’ living and learning conditions through better health and nutrition and strengthen community participation in the schools to ensure that children receive proper care. Already under the project, nearly 4,000 students have received more than 500,000 meals made from American wheat and rice. The U.S. Government through USAID also provided first aid kits, water filters, and hundreds of insecticide-treated mosquito nets and funds to build or repair classrooms and latrines. Students also benefit from deworming treatment twice a year.

“I am impressed with the commitment of the local communities to bring about better conditions for all, including the children learning at the Koranic schools,” said Ambassador Janice L. Jacobs, who, along with USAID/Senegal Director Olivier Carduner visited Mboumba in mid-December 2006.

“Koranic schools are primary sources of education, as 20 percent of Senegalese children attend only Koranic schools,” she said. “We are pleased to be in a position to lend support to children in these schools.”

Staff members of Counterpart International, the project implementers, are helping develop a modern curriculum covering mathematics, life skills subjects, vocational training, health and HIV/AIDS prevention techniques, and income generating activities. Through the project, the nine supported Koranic schools will liaise and strengthen ties to the regional and national Koranic school network, sharing best practices on how to better provide for the educational, nutritional and health needs of children in koranic schools.

“By helping the students, you are helping the households as well,” Thierno Mamadou Bass, a key religious told the Ambassador and her delegation. “The help is immeasurable. What the program has done here is unheard of and we see the good things America is doing for us,” he said. “The whole village is full of praises for you and the program.”