Renovation and Construction

Make a lasting difference by renovating schools or building shelters for street children. The renovation and construction project aims to provide Talibés - which are Senegalese street children - and other disadvantaged groups with a better environment for educational and social development. The volunteers and the local staff will help paint, renovate and refurbish daaras (shelters for the street children, or Talibés) or build schools for the disadvantaged children and communities.

An important aim is to create dignified accommodation in which the Talibé children can have significantly improved living conditions. Every single former volunteer who participated in this project, describes their experience as hugely impactful for both the Talibés and Senegalese communities as for themselves. A typical renovation & construction program would be as follows. Volunteers for example work on painting and cleaning up two different schools with their supervisor and fellow volunteers. The children who the schools are renovated for, are truly grateful and happy when they see the changes made to their school. Former volunteers describe an incredible thankfulness from all the children, everyone hugging together and seeing a lot of smiles. It has changed both of their lives so much and provided everyone with a great experience they will never forget.

A typical day will start with waking up and having breakfast at your host-family's house. After that, you will either walk (most host-family's are located on walking distance) or take a taxi to your project location. At 9 in the morning, you meet with your supervisor and other volunteers. Together you will continue on your task: which can for example be painting a schoolbuilding for the Senegalese street-children. At 12:30 PM,  you get to enjoy a long afternoon break, where you can have a nice West-African lunch, go to the beach, the market or swimming pool, or just relax woth your fellow volunteers. From 16:00  untill 18:30 in the evening, your project continues. In the evening, you can have dinner with your host family or for example go to a restaurant with other volunteers, and afterwards enjoy a nice bar or do other fun activities. Project days are usually monday till friday, so you have the afternoons, evenings and weekends to do sightseeing, relaxing, and exploring Senegal with your fellow volunteers! Off-days outside of the weekends have to be debated with the supervisors, all depending on the length of your stay. But once again: ASF always tries to be as flexible as possible, to meet the wishes of our volunteers!