Senegal
WHERE WE WORK > SENEGAL
Jiggen Joggal! (Woman Rise up!)
Empowering women and girls to bring transformation
Empowering women and girls to bring transformation
Good Shepherd programs started in 1976 in Thiès to support girls living in vulnerable situations in the area, through professional trainings in sewing and broderie. In the following years, vocational training centres and shelters in Dakar, Mbour and Thiès opened, offering women and girls, living in the street and who experienced violence or commercial sexual exploitation, literacy and training courses. In 1997 and in 2002, the Saint Marie Euphrasie centre and Augustina Rivas centre begun their activities supplementing training also with education in labour law, health, and family management. Overall the program in Senegal aims to improve the lives of more than 4,000 girls, women and children in the communities where we operate so that they enjoy their social, economic and personal fulfilment.
Activities
- Social and economic empowerment for women and girls, through trainings and micro-credit. Two centers for women’s training and empowerment in Thiès and Dakar implement literacy and vocational training courses (incooking and pastry, ) for women and girls to promote their social and economic inclusion and respond to underemployment and poverty that affect mostly women. The participants can also receive French classes.In 2019 more than 1,571 girls and women (Dakar) and 425 girls (Thiès) had attended professional courses to gain skills and access dignified jobs. Micro-credit and saving group projects in Thiès, Dakar and Mbour have been developed to help women in sexually oppressive and exploitative situations transform their lives and enhance their overall socio-economic status.
- Shelter “Ker Rose Virginie” for women, girls and their children in Dakar. The shelter so far has welcomed 300 women, and their children, and young girls in a situation of family breakdown or who survived sexual and physical violence providing them with shelter, psychological and medical assistance and socio-educational activities. Recently the shelter accommodated 26 residents and thanks to support and follow-ups, some have already been reintegrated into their families and into society.
- In the centers in Dakar and Thiès awareness raising about women’s and children’s rights and training on child safeguarding are provided to the program’s participants and local partners, including local authorities and faith leaders, together with sensitization on women’s rights to reproductive and sexual health.
PROJECTS LOCATIONS
Mbour, Dakar, Thiès
HIGHLIGHTS
1
Projects
400
Beneficiaries
AREAS OF INTERVENTION
COUNTRY BACKGROUND / OVERVIEW
In Senegal women still have to face many constraints impeding the full achievement of their socio-economic rights: poverty, discrimination, unequal access to mainstream and professional education. Women are often prevented to access financial services which condemns them to precarious and poorly paid jobs in the informal economy. This situation also increases the risk of exploitation and gender-based violence in the workplace, and in the community, as women continue struggling in a society that conveys female inferiority and subordination.
Many women are not fully aware of their fundamental rights and this has as direct consequences on: early pregnancies, an HIV/AIDS infection rate higher for women and widespread commercial sexual exploitation; The perpetuation of practices of gender-based violence such as female genital mutilation (FGM) is still affecting a lot of women in Senegal.
Facts and figures
- employment rate for women 33,9%
- only 33% of girls access to secondary education
- 27% of women between 15 and 49 years of age have been victims of physical and/or sexual violence (EDS, 2017)
- 32,8 % of population living below poverty line
