Colours and voices

Where: Senegal

Who: Viaggi Solidali

On this travel you will meet more than ten associations with hundreds of women involved

English Summary:

Ecotourism and local communities in this trip with Viaggi Solidali. Just a few examples of what women do, from the program in italian below: batik, cooking, dance classes in Louga, with the association ADKSL and Mbour. Natural Reserve guides and hosts in Popeguine and Lompoul. A restaurant in Jokko. A jewelry boutique in Djoudj.

This is the italian Brochure. See more at the links below.

Ecotourism and exchange with local communities, are the ingredients of different itineraries, with associations that have become refined landlord. You can sail through mangroves or learn batik, beaches and villages. You come not only for savannah, mangrove and baobab forests, ornithological reserves and fishermen, natural parks between sea and desert, dolphins, crocodiles and turtles, sand tongues and lagoons, peul villages, wolof, maure, delabré neighborhoods in the city colonial atmosphere. But to "do and participate": from the collection of palm wine in the village of Sokone to the processing of cashews of the women of Ndiafe, from the show of percussion calebasses to the prediction of the future with the reading of shells, from batik dyeing workshops to songs and dances of the Maure and Wolof ethnic groups.. All under the guidance of GIE (economic interest groups) and cultural associations.

Any example?

-In a district of Louga (do not miss the Fesfop: at the end of the year days and nights of folklore and percussions), the association ADKSL (www.adksl.sn) is formed by many women: they make cooking classes, go shopping and then cook with their guests. About ten women take batik courses and colour the classic "bogolan" with herbs and natural dyes. Others make tablecloths, potholders, clothes, scarves, bags. Now they are equipping to color the fibers and weave, in order to activate the entire chain, from the wire to the dress. They sell to tourists, but also to the community.

-In Popenguine, 80 km below Dakar, 30 women are involved in school support and children, but also to welcome tourists, recycle paper and invent jewelry. They manage the reserve and the cliff according to strict principles of environmental protection, and the Campement Keur Cupam, where you can stay overnight and taste magnificent local dishes.

-In Sokone, you go pirogue among the mangroves to the marine reserve of Sine Salum, you have lunch on the island of shells and you swim in the lagoon, while in the village the members of Jokko accompany the tourists to the market, make the palm wine, welcome the evening at dinner and at home. And there is also the small restaurant that the women have raised in a busy street, aiming at the passage not only of tourists.

-In the park of Djoudj, on the border with Mauritania, you can not but buy a necklace of colored beads, of course Boutik-bi: then there is time to spend the day among thousands of migratory birds, in a UNESCO World Heritage natural paradise and stay at the Le Njagabaar campement (www.djoudjvillages.sn)

-In Mbour, women organize the batik dyeing workshop, and lunch based on couscous, you spend the evening with dances and music,

-Further north, in the fishing village between dunes and ocean, the Meissa House ( www.casameissa.com) has just been inaugurated, to eat and sleep in Lompoul, supporting the initiatives of the local GIE and the association of migrants ACTU

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