18FEB2012. El Hadji Alioune Diouf, Directeur, Direction du Commerce Interieur, Ministere du Commerce of Senegal pays an informal visit to Options Senegal — here inspecting a section of the newly installed Ecolign bottling line.
Progress Report 003, 26Jan12
January 31, 2012 By Leave a Comment
I. COOPERATION BETWEEN PARTNERS 1. First and foremost, we want to say that ChildFund Senegal and the Federations have been most cooperative with Options Senegal. For example: 1 a. After each training, the Options Senegal trainers (Malick Fall and Ibrahima Ba) and the Options Senegal managers (Jaryd Kase and Walter Coddington) discussed and agreed upon [...]
Options Senegal Thies Headquarters
January 27, 2012 By 2 Comments
Two weeks ago, we moved from our temporary office in Dakar to a more permanent location in Thies. At the roughly 2,000 sq. ft. Thies Headquarters, we will also temporarily locate an Ecolign Mini-plant (small-scale blending and bottling operation). We’ll move the Mini-plant to a larger location after we determine how much product production and [...]
Progress Report 002, 12Jan12
January 12, 2012 By 1 Comment
November 28 to January 12, 2012. Partnership. Over the past three months, since the US contingent of the Options Senegal development team has been “on the ground” here in Senegal, we have developed a deep respect for the work of the local Federations and Associations that ChildFund International and ChildFund Senegal support and have organized [...]
Options Senegal: the Second Life
January 5, 2012 By 1 Comment
Options Senegal has begun using the Second Life game platform on the Internet to model new EcoLign promotional materials and to train EcoLign salespeople on an ongoing basis. Currently, only about 25% of the trainees have access to a computer and the Internet. We’ll work on increasing that percentage.
Deeper into Senegal: Baol
January 1, 2012 By 1 Comment
Last week we were in Baol, in the Diourbel region of Senegal. The 140-kilometer drive takes 3 hours if you leave Dakar at 5:00 in the morning and six hours stuck in traffic if you leave any later than that. Baol is considerably smaller than Thiès and Mbour, with a population of approximately 100,000 people [...]
Economic Interest Groups in Mbour
December 20, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Mbour – December 19- 23, 2011. Members of ten community associations met to form Economic Interest Groups (GIE) and for business and life skills training by ChildFund Senegal, Options Senegal and the Fel Yook Federation of Mbour. This group of 50 trainees, the first group out of 100 trainees in this region, were recruited by [...]
Sand in Camberene
December 12, 2011 By 1 Comment
One of the biggest production challenges we face here in the suburbs of Dakar – very near the ocean — is keeping our filling line equipment free of sand. People in our neighborhood sweep their floors several times a day. The sand dust is so fine you can’t see it but it’s as much a [...]
Training Schedule
November 30, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Options Senegal and ChildFund Senegal will begin the training of 300 program participants in the Thiès and Diourbel regions of Senegal commencing December 13, 2011. The course will cover basic business organization and life skills including reproductive health and personal financial management (by ChildFund Senegal) and the marketing, distribution, and sales of non-toxic household cleaning [...]
Training the Trainers
November 29, 2011 By 1 Comment
On October 31, 2011, Options for Life (OFL) Director of Business Development, Jaryd Kase, began ‘training the trainers’ — including the Senegalese local Mini-plant management team — in preparation for OFL’s joint economic empowerment program with ChildFund Senegal. Commencing in mid-December, Options Senegal trainers will work with ChildFund trainers in preparing hundreds of local under-employed [...]
