Food for Education and Child Nutrition in Senegal

Challenge

In Senegal, school attendance rates are low and drop-out rates are high, especially for girls. Malnutrition, the result of insufficient diets and poor sanitation practices, affects 26 percent of children under the age of five. At home, many children do not receive the nutrition needed to grow strong and stay attentive in school. Challenges to nutrition, health, and literacy are intertwined, so it is vital to address them in concert, through community-led and community-based solutions.

Promise

Counterpart has been improving health and education in Senegal through the USDA Food for Education program since 2001. Our previous program provided 4.5 million meals to 25,000 children in 174 schools throughout the Matam region, dramatically improving school enrollment and retention rates, especially among girls. Our current program is expanding on these results in the St. Louis region, focusing on nutrition, health, and literacy. The program works directly with parents, schools, community members, and government agencies to:

• increase student nutrition and attendance by providing two daily meals at school;
• establish sustainable community farms and granaries;
• improve school infrastructure by constructing classrooms and latrines and by providing water stations and energy-efficient stoves;
• strengthen the capacity of school administrators and teachers to improve and standardize teaching methods; and
• train parent-teacher associations and other community members on the value of education, good nutrition, preventative healthcare, and safe food preparation and storage practices.

Impact

To date, Counterpart and our partners in the St. Louis region have:

• distributed more than 15 million meals to more than 45,000 students;
• constructed 30 fully-equipped classrooms and 24 latrines;
• distributed 330 energy saving cook stoves and 270 handwashing stations;
• increased by nearly 20% the number of primary school children reading at appropriate level;;
• trained 1,249 teachers on the revised School Health, Nutrition, and Environment Guide;
• established 256 granaries and 20 community farms;
• harvested 129,246 pounds of rice, tomatoes, okra, onions, peanuts, watermelon, and cabbage;
• planted 6,675 moringa trees in 267 schools; and
• provided deworming medication to 90,726 children.

Sustainable Development Goals Addressed

Partners

Funder
United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)

Collaborators 
Government of Senegal:

• Ministry of National Education
• Departmental Inspector of National Education
• National Agency for Early Childhood and Preschools (ANPECTP)
• Agricultural Services Department
• Regional Education Authorities in Saint Louis

United States Peace Corps

Local parent-teacher associations