Senegal - Africa
The primary school project is to be designed for the rural areas of southern Senegal. This is a country in western Sub-Saharan Africa bordering the Atlantic Ocean, Mauritania, Mali, Gambia and Guinea. The national population is almost 18 million, concentrated mainly in the major urban centres and the capital, Dakar. The territory, mostly flat, stretches over about 200,000 km², on the hydrographic left of the river of the same name and the catchment areas of some smaller rivers such as the Gambia and the Casamance in the south, where lagoons develop. The territory also extends into the so-called 'Sahel': the transition zone between the arid Saharan and humid regions of Guinean Africa.

The south of Senegal
The southern region, beyond the Gambia enclave, is called Casamance, after the river of the same name, and is divided into three administrative regions: Ziguinchor, Sedhiou and Kolda, totalling about 1.5 million inhabitants. It is one of the least developed areas in the country, with an average urbanisation rate in rural areas of 8% and an average poverty rate of around 90%. The location is purely agricultural and the rural villages have an average of 1,500 inhabitants. The main towns of Ziguinchor, Kolda and Sedhiou have populations of 200,000, 65,000 and 30,000, respectively. In the rural areas of Casamance, the quality of life is among the worst in the country, due to lack of development, lack of resources and infrastructure, and climate change, which severely affect agro-pastoral activities that are the primary source of self-sufficiency. Here, poverty is at its highest with 97% of the population; 88% of families have no access to drinking water; 60% of the population lives in dwellings without direct access to electricity and 98% of the dwellings have no sewage system; 60% of children leave school before high school.

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Education is the basis for improving the lives of people and communities, and is the necessary tool to make them self-sufficient. With the UN 2030 Agenda, one of the fundamental goals is indeed to enable quality education for all children. In recent years, there have been significant global achievements in school enrolment. The basic level of literacy has improved significantly and equality between girls and boys in primary education has been achieved. However, few countries have achieved this at all educational levels. However, what has been done so far is not enough, and even today millions of children in the world do not enjoy the right to education. Although school enrolment in developing countries has reached 91%, 57 million children are still excluded, and more than half of them live in Sub-Saharan Africa. Also aggravating the situation is the lack of adequate teaching materials and infrastructure compatible with an ever-increasing need. In other situations, however, many students arrive to class hungry, sick or exhausted from child labour or household chores and, often, school facilities are not equipped to provide food or health support. The majority of schools in Sub-Saharan Africa do not have toilets, changing rooms, or canteens, and the school infrastructure is reduced to a succession of walls and classrooms, often made of concrete bricks. In such environments, it is difficult to stimulate the students' psyche and develop their full potential, as well as to protect their right to education, life and health. Education is the fundamental tool for acquiring the analytical, technical, organisational and decision-making skills, as well as strengthening one's self-confidence and determination necessary to make life's important decisions on the basis of awareness and knowledge. An uneducated adult may, in fact, not be able to understand, and thus resolve everyday situations with repercussions that may affect the health, economy and future of the family, as well as the entire community.

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