The Novogratz Bridge Year program in Senegal is based in the bustling capital city of Dakar, a thriving urban center where history, culture, spirituality, and dynamic contemporary arts weave a vibrant and complex urban fabric. For most of the year, students live with homestay families in the neighborhood of Yoff, a traditional Lebou fishing community on the northern coast of the city, where participants experience and practice teranga, a Wolof word describing the warm hospitality and generous spirit of the Senegalese people. When in Dakar, Bridge Year participants support organizations working in areas such as education, youth empowerment, and community development. Excursions and short-term community engagement opportunities in rural areas outside of Dakar provide students with insight into rural village life and issues of environmental conservation, educational access, and healthcare delivery. Participants acquire proficiency in Wolof and French and learn about Senegalese history, politics, art, and Islam through guest speakers and cultural enrichment activities. 

In Senegal, Princeton University partners with Where There Be Dragons. For over 30 years, Dragons has specialized in culturally immersive, meaningful, and educational travel opportunities for students in Asia, Latin America, and Africa. Through their international programming, Dragons focuses on sustainable community engagement, empowerment of students and local partners, professional skill building, and expert mentorship. Dragons has worked in partnership with Princeton University and the Novogratz Bridge Year Program since 2009.

Program itineraries are subject to change based on conditions that impact local travel logistics, public health, and participant safety.

Arrival and Orientation

Upon arrival in Senegal, Bridge Year participants spend a week in a coastal village on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean just south of Dakar, where they are introduced to life in Senegal through a week-long orientation program. Among this remarkable coastal scenery, welcoming community, and peaceful setting, participants begin getting to know one another and their new home, and engage in learning about health and safety and Senegalese cultural norms. During this time, participants also begin intensive Wolof and French classes. 

Fall Enrichment Program

Following orientation, Bridge Year students engage with rural, urban, and peri-urban communities in Western Senegal and gain additional insight into the joys and challenges of daily community life.

The Fall Enrichment Program begins with travel to the city of Thiès, which is participants’ first introduction to an urban environment in Senegal. They explore the market, visit local community organizations, and spend a few days with their first Senegalese homestay families! From there, the group heads further north, to the village of Mouit. Staying at the nature reserve’s guesthouse, participants have the opportunity to learn about the environmental preservation efforts from the local park rangers, to join the rangers on bird-counting walks, and to plant mangrove tree nurseries. Furthermore, they are welcomed by a local family for meals and - not to forget! - tea-time. Just a short drive from Mouit, the former capital city of Saint Louis is the group’s next short urban immersion, where they have the opportunity to explore the city’s history and vibrant art scene.

From there, the group travels back south, to a small village just outside of Thiès, where locals eagerly await the group in the village of Ndioukhane. Ndioukhane has a thriving culture that provides an opportunity to gain insights into the structures of local governance, rural life, and rainy season harvesting activities. During their stay in the village, students have a chance to live with homestay families and collaborate with local educational and environmental initiatives. 

Arrival in Dakar

By late September, Bridge Year participants arrive in Dakar and settle into Yoff, a quiet neighborhood located on the beach north of the city center. Here, students take part in another five-day orientation program that prepares them to navigate their new environment. This Program Site Orientation provides students with a thorough introduction to the neighborhood and all that it has to offer, as well as the practical skills required to find their way around, integrate themselves into local culture, and thrive in their homestays and community organization placements.

Homestay

Shortly after arriving in Dakar, program participants move in with their long-term homestay families. The homestay experience is an opportunity to establish relationships, practice language skills, and integrate more fully into local society. Participants can expect comfortable but modest accommodations. One student is placed in each home where they have their own bedroom, furnished with a twin bed and a place to store clothing. While some homes may have showers, participants should be prepared for bucket baths (usually cold, but sometimes heated water is available) for bathing. Most meals are prepared by and eaten with homestay families. The typical diet includes rice, millet, beans, assorted vegetables and fish. Participants are welcomed into family life with genuine kindness and hospitality.

Language Instruction

Bridge Year participants engage in Wolof and French language training throughout their stay in Senegal. From October through December, Bridge Year participants receive six to eight hours of language training per week. From January to April, language classes continue with some variability in specific number of hours, as well as the language of instruction (Wolof or French), depending on student interest. One-on-one tutoring, as well as a language buddy program, is also available to students in need of extra practice.

Placements with Community Organizations

Participants spend 20-25 hours per week, collaborating with local community organizations. Travel time to and from placements depends on the assignment, but can range from a 15-minute walk to an hour-long bus ride. Staff orient students to their respective assignments and provide continuous support throughout the program. Below is a list of community partner organizations in Dakar. This list is not comprehensive; it simply provides examples of the types of assignments in which students might be placed.

• YMCA Senegal runs various programs in adult literacy, youth entrepreneurship, health education, and computer training. They also operate an elementary school and preschool in Dakar. Under direct supervision of a YMCA staff member, Bridge Year participants most often teach English at the elementary school and/or lead activities in the preschool. Community-engaged learning opportunities may also include supporting YMCA's additional projects, such as the criminal justice program, outer school sports, games, tutoring programs, translating reports, teaching English to staff, or supporting educational projects in rural communities outside Dakar.
• Social Change Factory is a Senegalese civic leadership center with branches in Ivory Coast, The Gambia, Chad, and France. Their projects focus on social innovation and research in education, active citizenship, children's and women's rights, and the youth's access to the job market. Community-engaged learning opportunities at Social Change Factory include conducting research projects on topics relevant to SCF’s areas of intervention, social media content creation, and updating social media platforms.
• CorpsAfrica is modeled after the U.S. Peace Corps and sends African volunteers to serve in rural communities in their home countries. Volunteers can work in their home country for one year with the possibility to extend for a second year in another African country where CorpsAfrica operates. Community-engaged learning opportunities include helping with archive digitalization, assisting with event planning and organization, translation services, and various research projects.
• Green Wave Jewellery is a women-led project founded on the concept of transforming waste products from the natural environment (plastic waste from the beach, driftwood, cuttlebone, etc) into high quality jewelry, and transforming lives of women that have been subjected to abuse through the opportunity to be trained in these crafts (jewelry, and more artisanal crafts to be developed) and thereby to work as artisans. Green Wave Jewellery partners with the women's shelter “La Maison Rose”. Community-engaged learning opportunities for Bridge Year participants include assisting with training and jewelry production, as well as social media and marketing content creation.
• Sunu Thiossane is a Dakar-based youth development agency focusing on art and academic enrichment. This organization is an American-Senegalese initiative that runs school programs through art and academic support. One of their goals is to foster educational opportunities between Senegal and the U.S. Community-engaged learning opportunities include English-language exchanges, as well as supporting the organizations arts programming, or the planning and organization of the yearly summer trip to the USA. 
• GoMyCode is a tech learning company that offers hands-on, project-based technology training courses for tech enthusiasts across Africa and the Middle East. In Senegal, they run two hackerspaces in Dakar, where they offer hands-on professional training courses in web development, graphic design, data science, cyber security and more. In addition to the courses, they facilitate co-working spaces where young people can collaborate and innovate. Community-engaged learning opportunities include creating educational and project-based spaces for hackerspace and course participants to practice their English language skills, and supporting other administrative work or GoMyCode initiatives.
• Centre Verbo-Tonal is a public school for deaf and hard of hearing children aged eight to eighteen. They provide primary school teaching, and some vocational training and advocacy for their students' access to professional training schools and to the job market. The school used to work mainly with hearing aids and lip reading, but in the past four years has begun teaching sign language as well. The school has a computer lab, a school garden, a chicken coop, a kitchen and a library to allow students to acquire addition skills for professional or personal contexts. Community-engaged learning opportunities include supporting any of these vocational training projects, supporting classroom teaching and the development of the sign language program, and proposing their own initiatives. 
• CIPROVIS is a start-up working on waste management: they offer waste separation and collection services to a variety of clients ranging from households to major companies like Auchan, TER (the regional train company, Eiffage (the paytoll highway), the US Embassy, and others. Their services include providing trash containers, education on separating waste, collection of waste and recycling, and processing waste and recyclable material to prevent them from ending up in a landfill. They also have a range of social non-profit activities and projects, such as providing environmental education sessions in local schools and setting up waste management, separation and collection systems in villages free of charge. For the management and treatment of the collected waste, they have some units that they operate internally, and for other materials, they collaborate with artisans, recyclers or companies to process the waste. Community-engaged learning opportunities include administrative and office-based tasks, as well as the possibility to support educational workshops, and various waste collection, processing, and transformation projects. 

Cultural Enrichment Activities

Over the course of the program, local experts and other guest lecturers are invited to discuss diverse topics including Senegalese history, politics, public health, religion, gender, urbanization, deforestation, and the arts. 

Bridge Year participants also take part in at least two group excursions outside of the city of Dakar. Excursion destinations depend on many factors including weather, time constraints, student interest, and relevance to the overall program, but a number of different options are available. Possible destinations include the Southern Coast, Kedougou, Kolda, and Saint Louis. To the greatest extent possible, participants are given ownership over the research, planning, and logistics for these group expeditions.

Finally, Bridge Year participants have the opportunity to engage in independent projects or mentorships on topics such as West African drumming, cooking, tailoring, traditional medicine, visual arts, or Islam. The activity may directly enrich the participant’s service assignment or serve to enhance an understanding and appreciation of Senegal and Senegalese culture.

Spring Enrichment Program

In the spring, students work together to envision and plan a two to three-week excursion. Frequent destinations are the Sine-Saloum Delta and the Gambia. The Sine-Saloum Delta, at the mouth of the Saloum River, is a diverse ecosystem of wetlands, lakes, lagoons and marshes, as well as sandy coasts and dunes, terrestrial savannah areas and dry, open forest. It is home to 400 species of animals and plays a vital role in flood control and regulating the distribution of rainwater for the local people and wildlife. Students, with the support of onsite staff, develop an itinerary that explores life in Serer fishing villages and delves deeper into development and environmental issues. Depending on student interest, it is also possible to travel to the Gambia which shares many ethnic, linguistic, economic, and historical ties with Senegal. Students will have the opportunity to meet with local Gambian leaders, traditional healers, regional development specialists, and other experts in the area.

Program Wrap-up

The final week of the Novogratz Bridge Year Program takes place in a tranquil retreat space close to the coast, where students can enjoy vibrant sunsets and their last dips in the Atlantic Ocean. Here, participants engage in a re-entry workshop to examine lessons learned from their Bridge Year experience and reflect on their return home, their goals for the future, and the ways in which they can best integrate their experience into daily life at Princeton.

• Program Location: Dakar, Senegal 
• Country Name: République du Sénégal (French); Réewum Senegaal (Wolof)
• Population: 17,923,036 (Senegal); 3,326,000  (Dakar) 
• National Symbol: Lion
• Languages: French (official), Wolof, Pular, Jola, Mandinka, Serer, Soninke
• Religions: Islam 95.9% (most adhere to one of the four main Sufi brotherhoods), Christianity 4.1% (mostly Roman Catholic)
• Currency:  CFA Franc
• Fast Fact: In the 16th century when the Portuguese visited the country’s coast, the fishermen said “sunu gaal,” which translates into “these are our boats.” The Portuguese, who understood nothing, simply named their land “Senegal.”