Thies Region Water Project Mbour—Senegal

Mbour is located in the middle of the Petite Cote region, only 80km south of Dakar, Senegal. Supporting a population of around 200,000, it’s Senegal’s fifth largest city and one of the country’s fastest growing. As a large city, Mbour contains a mélange of all of the countries’ ethnic groups and languages. While Wolof is spoken widely throughout the city, and is the main form of communication among the Senegalese, one will also hear Sereer (as it is the second most dominant ethnic group in the city), and at times, Pulaar, French, etc.

Due to its status as a large city expanding rapidly, Mbour has various shanty settlements that have high rates of poverty, unemployment and sanitation problems. Access to clean drinking water in these poor areas of the city has remained a challenge, causing various health concerns. Many young Senegalese have left their villages and smaller towns in search of better opportunities in the tourist economy of Mbour. Finding work is hard, so they often end up turning to the sex trade or hassling tourists. Most of the young men engage in the dangerous and treacherous journey of using boats to travel to the Canary Islands or Spain, in search of better life. These trips often end in disaster, with hundreds drowning.