Dakar Reve

The African context has known for years an increasing urbanization: the populations move from the countryside to the cities, creating large urban agglomerations in rapid expansion, with problems of provision of services and protection of natural habitats. The phenomenon is also evident in the Senegalese capital Dakar, whose urban agglomeration now extends beyond the municipal boundaries affecting the entire region and arriving at the neighbouring region of Thiès, for a total population of the two areas exceeding 5 million inhabitants.

It is estimated that more than 1000 tonnes of waste are sent to landfill every day, crammed into almost 100 hectares of land reclaimed from a partially dried salt lake. Waste management is a burning issue for many African cities that have grown too fast and still lack efficient recycling and differentiation systems.

The project aims to support the municipality of Dakar in the development of a response model to develop an intervention on the issues of waste management, sustainability of municipal services, support for the green economy.

The City of Milan will implement a pilot project of differentiation of waste collection in a district of Dakar, aiming at strengthening the activation of civil society, the business world and the diaspora on environmental issues in the urban context. Officials from the Municipality of Dakar and local waste management services, users of waste management services and public markets, green micro-enterprises will be involved, social workers and citizens directly involved in the various actions.

Fondazione Reggio Children in collaboration with the Educational Workshop Service of the Municipality of Reggio Emilia, will work on actions aimed at deepening good practices in terms of circular economy and sustainability education for families, schools and citizens, proposing workshop activities in Senegal to raise awareness of sustainability issues in order to deepen and develop innovative educational strategies to raise awareness and education on the environmental issue. At the end of the workshop activities will be realized a documented return that will represent the opportunity for children and young people, educators and teachers, to give exposure to the work done and be able to develop a manifesto of good practices.

The project started in 2021, with a first meeting between partners based in Italy on 21 October 2021 and the official kick-off of the project with Italian and Senegalese partners on 26 October 2021. These first institutional meetings will be followed by bilateral meetings between the partners involved in the same project actions for the definition of activities.