Field visits (4)

Nyayes with Hope and Pride

Shauna MacKinnon, Canadian centre for policy alternatives, Winnipeg, Manitoba

Uniterra delegates were fortunate to visit the Nyayes region to experience the social economy in action. What was most striking about this experience was the contrast with the business model most commonly seen in Dakar.

There is an understandable desperation in the approach taken by merchants in the market. For each tourist, there are clearly many more sellers than purchasers. And a trip to the market is proof enough as swarms of young men circle around anyone looking like a tourist.  Several firm ‘non merci’s’ are required before they move on, and the slightest hesitation can result in an unwanted and very persistent companion for several blocks.

The business model in the Nyayes region is an example of a very different kind of enterprise in Senegal. The initiatives that we visited, including NGadiaga agricultural collective group, Takku Liggey de M’boro and Union Forestiere de M’boro (UFM), are three very different initiatives with a very important commonality. Each of these initiatives integrates both social and economic objectives. The members have learned that they will reap the greatest benefit by pooling their resources and reinvesting their profits back into the community.  The success of this approach in the Nyayes region is evident—they have built a school, purchased trucks to transport their products, created jobs and improved the social and economic well being of their villages.

The contrast of the initiatives that we visited and the markets in Dakar is striking. Unlike the aggressive desperation of the independent operators in the markets of Dakar, the people in the villages of the Nyayes region were alive with hope and pride.  Those of us from the North have much to learn from this.