21,000 Countrified Women living in Casamance – Southern Senegal: To be trained by the European Union as Women’s Empowerment through Renewable Energies

By Abdul Rahman Bangura–

NEW AFRICA DAILY NEWS (NADN) Freetown, Sierra Leone- An aggregate of 21,000 agrarian women dwelling in Casamance in southern Senegal will be tutored in income-generating activities (IGAs) wielding renewable energy. The goals of this operation, is to ameliorating the hardship of women by developing their living environment through renewable energy.

A training period unfolded on September 21st, 2020 at the Regional Centre for Vocational Training (CRFP) in Ziguinchor – capital of the historic region of Casamance in Southern Senegal unraveled. And it comprises of training sixteen trainers on solar energy utilization procedures and project management. After ten days of training, these trainers will in turn train 21,000 women from seventy-one villages in Casamance. This training in women’s entrepreneurship in renewable energy is part of the Senegalese segment of the project for the Economic and Social Development of Women through Renewable Energy in the Sahel (Desfers) launched on October 15th, 2018 in Dakar.

Thus, Desfers is carried out by the NGO Plan International in partnership with the Italian NGO Acra (Association for Rural Cooperation in Africa and Latin America). “The trainers will be equipped with technical modules in the field of renewable energy and in administrative and financial management, in order to be able to multiply the training to the women targeted by the project,” announces Emilia Vavassori, the representative of the NGO Acra in Senegal.

Moreover, the project Economic and Social Development of Women through Renewable Energy in the Sahel is also being conducted in Niger and Mali. It expands until 2023, at a total cost of €9.5 million. And 80% of this funding, in the form of a grant (’7.6 million), is allotted by the European Union Commission through the Women and Renewable Energy Fund.

Conclusively, Desfers has numerous benefits for Senegal. In expansion to endowing bucolic women in Casamance, the project will also render to rural electrification undertakings in a West African nation, where half the population has no admission to electricity. To alleviate the problem, Senegal has taken up the challenge of providing common access to electricity in all its villages by 2025.

For New Africa Daily News Abdul Rahman Bangura Reports,  Africa Correspondent

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