Promoting ecological farming practices through a women's economic interest grouping

Founded in 2020, the PSEPS (Projet Solidaire d'Échange et de Partage au Sénégal) association is run by engineering students from Icam. The group has a campus in La Roche-sur-Yon, which has been linked to Tambacounda, a town in eastern Senegal, since 1997 as part of a decentralised cooperation programme. PSEPS has turned to this region to devise solidarity projects, drawing on the network of contacts established by La Roche-sur-Yon.

With 160,000 inhabitants, Tambacounda is a major commercial crossroads, fed by cattle rearing and cereal growing. PSEPS is developing solutions to improve comfort and production techniques, promoting an exchange of know-how around ecological farming practices.

Since 2021, the association has been working with the Kemnane women's economic interest group, whose main activity is market gardening and grain milling. These practices not only help to meet food needs, but also generate income by selling part of the produce. In 2022, Icam students worked with the GIE to set up a market garden on an uncultivated plot of land donated by the town. They installed a well, a pest-proof fence, a water retention basin and a shelter, and PSEPS also provided training in market gardening.

In 2024, the project that won the Veolia Foundation Student Solidarity Jury Prize involves taking the use of this plot of land a step further. On the agenda: a solar irrigation system, a storage room, a low-tech grain mill, the introduction of management tools, raising awareness of composting and the construction of a henhouse.