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This page has information about our semester programs in Senegal. Click Here to learn more about our 3-week long January program.
Be Part of the Solution! Explore the impact of global trends and policies on sustainable development in western Africa, where ancient heritage is still intact to a degree rarely found elsewhere. Experience evolving models of community development, unique ecosystems and cultures in 3 or more Senegalese Ecovillages - communities from ancient to modern striving to create cooperative lifestyles in harmony with their local environment. In addition to classes and seminars, U.S. students will partner with Senegalese university students and villagers to learn and practice participatory research methods of assessing needs and carrying out development projects for improving the quality of village life.
The program consists of a comprehensive course in sustainable development, a holistic set of ecovillage development projects and service learning experiences, language courses, and ongoing cultural oriantation and training in communications and facilitation skills.
According to your personal interests, you will form small project teams with other students and/or villagers in the study village in which you will spend a third of the semester over several visits. Two courses, Independent Study and Service Learning, combine to permit you first to research and then to carry out your development projects with the guidance of faculty and mentors in your field.
Check out last years students' projects »
You build your French and/or Wolof language skills as you study the complex relationship between humans, development needs, and the environment.
This cutting edge program is individualized to meet the needs of both French and English speakers (please see Language Options). To learn more about the diverse ecovillages we partner with in Senegal, visit www.gensenegal.org.
Check out the student weblogs »
Browse the photo gallery »
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Become a part of community life, in colourful Muslim and nature spirit celebrations, attending concerts, taking dance or drum lessons, playing soccer at sunset, and working with CB0s (community-based organizations such as village development committees) in local health, clean-up and tree-planting campaigns. |
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Explore our own development NGO, GEN Senegal. The EcoYoff Living & Learning Center is part of GENSEN, and has welcomed more than 300 students, interns and volunteers . |
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With a Senegalese student partner, examine the simple living practices that make it possible, today as in ages past, to live lightly and joyously in pre-industrial conditions. |
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Experience the harmony of spacious non-linear village layouts and building structures that evolved in synchrony across the centuries with the flow of life in community. |
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Discover traditional healing practices that protect and reintegrate individuals with their families and communities through trance dancing, shrine offerings, amulets and ritual giving to the poor. |
These two courses support American and Senegalese students and village teams with closely related interests in exploring and creating projects of their choice in areas including women’s empowerment, education, the environment, social justice, health, business and ecotourism, the arts and music, and more.
The Independent Study course is the research carried out by students, villagers and faculty to obtain the knowledge base to create each development project. The Service Learning course is the project itself. Following a living and learning philosophy, these courses interweave mentoring with flexible sessions in social science and action research methods applied to the creation of each semester’s development projects.
Past Service Projects include: creation of Permaculture gardens; installation of drip irrigation; reforestation of mangroves; mural paintings by local artists on community ecotourism centers, construction of crafts shops, ecotourism brochures; providing equipment and health education for filtering and purifying drinking water; providing solar ovens and teaching solar recipes; parenting workshops rehabilitating malnourished children and introducing learning toys; modern health hut internship in primary care; construction of a traditional medicine consultation hut and garden for preserving medicinal plants; education on artificial insemination, producing hybrid cows yielding 30 liters of milk/day compared to 3 liters from the local breed; sex education for middle school students, English teaching, microenterprise training and projects with women’s groups and many others.
Check out the student weblogs »
Browse the photo gallery»
About 60% of each semester takes place at the EcoYoff Living and Learning Center in the capitol city of Dakar. EcoYoff is based in a modernizing 600 year-old Lebou ethnic fishing village in the suburban commune of Yoff. EcoYoff originated with a small group of volunteers at the Third International EcoCities and Ecovillages Conference in 1996, and has a permaculture garden and workshop facilities located near the Atlantic. The other 40% is devoted to experiential learning and service during a 10 day visits and a three-four week stay in ecovillages in different ecological zones. Travel is by bus, car, boat and horse-drawn cart to remote areas to participate in activities that aim to make positive contributions in the communities, your own lives and those of your village work teams and families.
Typical of villages in which students have performed service learning for several weeks is Nder, former capital of the Wolo Kingdom situated along the banks of Lac de Guiers — reservoir for most of Senegal's potable water supply. Nder is one of the leaders of the Senegal sustainable village development network. There, student and village teams ran a nutrition and anemia rehabilitation workshop for young children and several non-formal education activities for children and women’s enterprise groups. They also created an organic farm with drip irrigation, a DVD of the musical drama of Nder’s historic saga and ecotourism brochures and plaques.
Mlomp, in southwest Senegal, near the border between Senegal and Guinea-Bissau, is the village selected for the long visit of the Fall 2006 semester. Mlomp households, built in decorative mudbrick architecture with thatched roofs, are grouped in circles with a 3-km diameter, shaded by stately silk cotton trees, and surrounded by agricultural lands that are flooded during the rainy season. Mlomp also is known for its organic agriculture and its mainly animist and Christian population, as distinct from Senegal’s Muslim North. The ecovillage of Mlomp has been successful in mounting projects through self-help, using local resources, and it is eager to host and work with the Living Routes program.
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| Senegal's ecovillage headquarters at
Yoff on the tropical Atlantic coast. more photos
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| During the community service learning
project, students work in children's nutrtion and health,
ecotourism development, women's issues and many other topics
of interest. more photos » |
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| Students come from colleges and universities
around the U.S. and partner with Senegalese students to gain
knowledge and understanding of sustainability and ecotoursism
development. |
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This program offers four courses:
a sustainable development course taught in English; Independent Study and Service Learning courses taught in French or English (individualized to meet the needs of each student) plus a language course:
- A beginning-intermediate French language course, or
- Intermediate-advanced professional French language course, or
- A beginning Wolof language course
The French courses provide a unique opportunity to rapidly advance your French and learn professional vocabulary in the fields of international and sustainable development and in sustainable village technologies.
As in our January-term program, the semester program enrolls equal numbers of American and Senegalese students. These Senegalese students already are conversant in English. On a work study basis, with the interest of improving their translation skills, the Senegalese students serve as language interpreters for their American partners in the villages, or other situations in which the language being spoken is French or Wolof.
American and Senegalese students discuss and debate lectures, readings and experiences to flesh ideas they may have missed and reach cross-cultural understanding of development issues. American students typically do their readings and written assignments in English, while the Senegalese read and write in French.
Special Intensive Language Opportunity
Students desiring Intensive French or Wolof studies can take a second French/Wolof course as an independent study. Students who chose to study French will, in addition, be given basic converational Wolof skills.
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Sustainable Development In Senegal, Theory And Practice
ANTH 397A (4 cr.)
This introductory university course in sustainable development theory and practice is co-taught by the Senegalese coordinator for the formulation of the nation's sustainability strategy, and the American Director of the EcoYoff Sustainable Community Development Program, training center for the 28-member villages in Senegal's ecovillage network (GEN Senegal). Integrating top-down and bottom-up development perspectives, the course focuses on understanding, assessing and attempting to contribute to Senegal's sustainability policies and programs. U.S. students work with Senegalese university students in pairs and in teams based on common interest. The instructors and guest lecturers are bilingual in French and English. Non-French speaking students will be paired with local English speakers.
Independent Study in Sustainable International Development
ANTH 396 (4 cr.)
Through discussion with EcoYoff faculty and others, students define their own research projects. This course supports American and Senegalese student teams with closely related interests in exploring topics of their choice in domains related to sustainable international development. Program faculty link students to local experts as counselors and mentors. Each team also has an EcoYoff faculty supervisor. Since faculty and staff all work closely with the students on their projects. Students may carry out their independent study in the same field as their service learning, or in another area. To facilitate student projects, this course includes eight sessions in social science and action research methods. Depending on their type of study, students typically carry out some structured data collection and analysis. They share their findings in a research paper and in presentations both for the village community and in a final session for other students, faculty and staff.
Community Service Learning in Developing Countries
HONORS 397 (4 cr.)
Community Service Learning (CSL) is the integration of community service and learning for the enhancement of both. In developing countries where services often are minimal, community development skills are keys to effective service learning. Starting at the EcoYoff sustainable community development center in Dakar, American students paired with Senegalese student partners will learn introductory participatory action research (PAR) and capacity building skills, while engaging in service learning in a poor urban community. They will prepare to apply these development skills in phase two, during which they will live and serve in Mlomp, a village in southwest Senegal, near the border between Senegal and Guinea-Bissau that continues to practice organic agriculture, eat locally produced foods and live in traditional ecological housing. Service learning and PAR will take place in collaboration with the dynamic local ecovillage association and their development partners. Course completion will be at EcoYoff.
Students take one of the following language courses:
Beginning to Intermediate French
FRENCH 290 (4 cr.)
Our program director, Ousmane Pame, who once taught French at Manchester University will decide with each student whther he/she will learn most rapidly in the this beginning – intermediate course or the nect intermediate – advances class. This will accommodate beginners and advanced beginners, whose previous French classes took place long ago or failed to provide them with sufficient opportunities to gain spoken language proficiency and comprehension. Students will gain fluency and confidence in both oral and written French, increase their professional French vocabulary in the area of international development and explore African cultures through a range of texts, taken from original sources by African authors. In addition to written exercises, students will read the local press regularly, listen to certain Senegalese radio programmes in French, and discuss the main news in class with their instructor. They also will review French technical vocabulary used in their sustainable development classes. The course encourages intense cultural interaction while building students’ linguistic competence and communication skills.
Intermediate to Advanced French
FRENCH 290 (4 cr.)
This intermediate – advanced French course is offered for those already proficient in basic spoken French. Starting at this level, students will increase their fluency and comprehension as well as their speed and accuracy in reading and writing in French, mastering a professional French vocabulary in the area of international development. Students also explore African cultures through a range of texts, taken from original sources by African authors. In addition to written exercises, students will read the local press regularly, listen to Senegalese radio programs in French, and discuss the news in class with their instructor. The course encourages intense cultural interaction while building students’ linguistic competence and communication skills.
Introductory Wolof and Senegalese Culture
FRENCH 290 (4 cr.)
(note: this Wolof course is listed under the French Department at UMass)
This introductory course will use audio-aural methods in conversational dialogues adapted from existing texts, as well as language learning games, Wolof proverbs and poetry. Only Wolof will be spoken in the classroom, with few exceptions. Adult literacy texts will serve to introduce written Wolof and to familiarize students with the rural lifestyles of Senegal. Students will also become familiar with and discuss the health, hygiene and other development messages that literacy programs target to the illiterate rural women who are their main participants.
Additional language courses for intensive French or Wolof are also available, when planned in advance as an option for the Independent Study course.
Earn 16 transferable credits through the University of Massachusetts
Amherst
Find
out about transferring credits to your home school »
View the full curriculum for this program »
The following is a list of core faculty. In addition, a wide variety of specialists from
local universities and development agencies teach collaboratively in the course.
Ousmane Aly Pame
Ph.D., English, Cheikh Anta Diop University, Dakar, Senegal
In addition to directing the Global Ecovillage Network's EcoYoff Living & Learning Center, Pame is a professor in the Department of English at Cheikh Anta Diop University, where he has been teaching translation and English civilization and literature for the past five years. He has also taught French language and Senegalese literature in the Department of French at Exeter University (United Kingdom) and business English at Suffolk University's Dakar Campus, and at CESAG, a West African sub-regional Management School. He has significant experience coordinating study abroad programs for U.S. students in Dakar, and is the local director for Living Routes' Senegal programs.
Lamine Kane
M.S., Community Development and Education, University of Manchester, UK.
Mr. Mouhamadou Lamine Kane has served since 2000 as a study abroad instructor in the sociology of International Development in Senegal for American University programs offered by the University of Minnesota through the West African Research Council in Dakar and by the Council on International Educational Exchange (CIEE) for a large number of American universities. Following his studies in Manchester, where he also taught French at Moss-side College, he served as a research fellow in African social anthropology and history at the Vervuren Museum and in the language department of Université Libre in Brussels, Belgium. From 1993 to 1995, he was UNICEF Dakar’s program officer for Education, working with the formal, informal, and remedial education sectors in Senegal. His has worked as an expert consultant in many countries for Ministries, UN Agencies, and NGOs and is the author of a recent paper on poverty reduction through education for the international conference in South Africa on "Education and Sustainable Development".
Oumar Diene
Ph.D., in Urban end Environmental Planning, Cheikh Anta Diop University, Dakar, Senegal
Dr. Diene is the program manager of the Living and Learning Center and of the Living Routes Program in Senegal. He also serves as the Secretary General of the Global Ecovillage Network, Senegal (GENSEN), and has worked extensively in development projects in areas including permaculture, ecotourism, and renewable energies. Dr. Diene teaches the Research and Action Research methods classes which are a part of the Independent Study and Service Learning courses and which enable Living Routes' Senegalese and U.S.students to work and learn effectively in host villages. He draws on a background of engagement and leadership in community development activities since his earliest student years in Yoff, Dakar.
Marian Zeitlin
Ph.D., International Nutrition Planning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Professor Marian Zeitlin, is the Director of the EcoYoff Living & Learning Center, cofounder and Vice President of GEN Senegal and founder of the EcoYoff Sustainable Community Development Programs provided by Living Routes. She will be present during half the program and will participate in sessions on action research and international program design and in nutrition, health and early child development. Before relocating to Senegal in 1996, she taught social science research methods and international program design for 17 years at the Tufts University Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy. She currently remains a visiting professor at Tufts University’s Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, a courtesy professor at Cornell University’s Division of Nutritional Sciences and a Visiting Fellow at Cornell’s Institute for African Development. Between 1971 and 2004 she also authored several books and consulted and directed projects in 25 countries sponsored by U.S.A.I.D., the World Bank, UNICEF, UNESCO, FAO, the Ford Foundation and Save the Children, among other agencies, before expanding her focus from nutrition, child development and food security to holistic ecological communities.
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credit... Included