Peace Corps Senegal has an Agriculture project and an Agroforestry project. The Agriculture project has components for Sustainable Agriculture (in rural settings) and Urban Agriculture. Urban activities focus on school, community, and rooftop gardens, while rural agriculture Volunteers work to improve field crop harvests, long-term soil fertility, and vegetable gardens. Agroforestry Volunteers support villagers to plant trees for food production, improved soil fertility, and enhanced agricultural harvests. They train villagers in fruit tree orchard management, live fencing for crop protection, and inter-planting trees with field crops to improve harvests. There are currently over 100 Volunteers in our Agriculture and Agroforestry sectors.

Community Economic Development Volunteers focus on supporting entrepreneurs and enterprise groups in four areas: solid waste management, ecotourism, artisanal production, and agribusiness including food transformation. Some Volunteers are working directly with local chambers of commerce to support entrepreneurs and businesses. Volunteers also work to train and coach entrepreneurs using the Peace Corps Senegal Entrepreneurship Training Program.

Preventative Health Volunteers work to improve community health across Senegal and focus on malaria prevention, water and sanitation, nutrition and common childhood illnesses. Volunteers live and work in both rural villages--partnering with local health volunteers, birth attendants, and health post workers--as well as in larger cities and regional capitals, where they may work with doctors or other health-based NGOs.

According to the World Food Summit food security exists “when all people at all times have access to sufficient, safe, nutritious food to maintain a healthy and active life”. Through Feed the Future, Peace Corps Senegal takes an integrated approach to food security with Volunteers across all four sectors working together towards this common aim. Volunteers do this individually and through cross-sector activities, including Master Farms, a flagship program started in 2010, where volunteers support local farmers to demonstrate sustainable agricultural techniques, and train community members in agricultural and agroforestry technologies, nutrition, and farm budget management.

Educated girls are essential to healthy and thriving communities but, globally, 62 million girls are not in school, and barriers to adolescent girls completing school are particularly significant. Through Let Girls Learn, Volunteers in Senegal work to keep more girls in school by implementing leadership trainings and camps for girls, Men as Partners programs, and the Michelle Sylvester Scholarship program, which has supported the education of thousands of middle school girls since 1993. 

Across Africa, through the President's Malaria Initiative, Peace Corps Volunteers work with local communities to eradicate malaria, a parasitic disease that claims over 1 million lives worldwide each year. In Senegal, Volunteers are engaged in national and regional malaria initiatives in partnership with various governmental and non-government organizations, and use their own creativity to improve the lives and health of their communities. Several Volunteer ideas and projects have received both national and international attention, and Senegal’s reputation for innovative programming stems, in large part, from creative malaria interventions. Malaria prevention activities are a cross-sector priority for Senegal Volunteers. It's all hands on deck to support the National Malaria Control Programme's goal to reach pre-elimination of malaria by 2018!