Since the major droughts in the Sahel region in the 1970s, many people from the rural areas of Senegal, but also from neighbouring countries, have moved to Dakar. They settled in the villages of Pikine and Guediawaye near the city, which developed into informal suburbs characterised by poverty and insecurity. Most of them arrived without any schooling or vocational training, which made it difficult for them to find work in the city. Other impoverished and dangerous neighbourhoods in Dakar were cleared by the state and the inhabitants were also resettled in Pikine and Guediawaye, which further worsened the already precarious living conditions.
A poorly functioning infrastructure, daily power cuts, inadequate healthcare and only a few schools are the result of this uncontrolled development of the suburbs. Here, socially disadvantaged adolescents and young adults have hardly any access to information and sexual and reproductive health services. Through unprotected sexual intercourse or unsafe contraceptive methods, they risk contracting sexually transmitted diseases and girls risk becoming pregnant unintentionally.
For years, the state has intended to take greater account of the specific needs of young people in terms of sexual and reproductive health. For example, a law has been passed that guarantees young people the right to contraception and a strategic plan has been drawn up to educate young people about sexual and reproductive health. However, there is a large discrepancy between political will and practical implementation and it is mainly civil society initiatives that are bringing about improvements.
AcDev is a local non-governmental organisation that uses the project to provide access to sexual and reproductive health services (SRHR), particularly for young people in remote neighbourhoods. By setting up counselling centres specifically for young people, as well as a mobile service that works with youth groups in the neighbourhoods and regularly visits the young people, the barrier to accessing health services is lowered. Here, questions about sexuality, contraception and family planning can be asked without being stigmatised. To ensure that parents also realise that the taboo does not reduce the sexuality of young people, but only increases the risks, the project seeks to talk to the parents' generation together with the young people and also via radio discussions.
