Build and nurture community centers

The Lahel Center in Northern Senegal

The mission of the center is to educate local communities, leaders, women and youth associations with the purpose of rolling back ignorance and socio economic poverty.

The center’s educational programme includes:

– functional reading and writing for basic business / household management (Over 65 % per cent of the adult population in these remote rural areas can neither read nor write).

 –  food processing and preservation

–  children’s nutrition (with the development of cash crops at the detriment of traditional crops, nutrition indicators are in red, especially those regarding for pregnant women and children

–   environmental education (for improvement of farm soils in the villages, water management, creation of orchards and regeneration of ecosystems

– ecovillage design and practices

– green vocational programmes (bee keeping, ecotourism, organic farming,

 The center is intended to become a vibrant meeting/ educational place where community delegates from 50 villages in Mauritania and 50 villages meet for workshops, exchange and cooperation. Several activities of this kind have taken place on the site before and during the construction of the building. The building is essential in protecting people from the hot winds and dust storms from March to July and hosting community activities. It is the living heart of the transborder ecovillage hub.