Tanaff’s a small town of about 9.000 inhabitants, which suffered the abandon of traditional activities by young people in order to make fortune somewhere else, sometimes even abroad , due to the persisting phenomena of dryness and salt intrusion. A big number of young people dies because unaware of risks. The project mostly addresses those youngers,providing an educational centre carring out traning activities and development of the territory, promotion and conservation of Senegalese cultures and traditions. The ancient town hall will be requalified and improved to create 3 multifunctional building and a musueal space. Its building process will represent an opportunity to add value to natural resources and territory, exclusively using natural building materials, through a load-bearing structure built with earthbags and a wooden coverings, repromoting some forgiven essences. The building site will represent a training place for the engagement of workforces and local associations, so learning new sustainable and not-expensive technologies in favour of sustainable development of villages. The Centre will be open to whomever represents a uniqueness in Senegal, also according to its constructive technology. Thereby we estimate a strong participation from the entire Casamance that could promote the territory even in turistic terms. 

Project mise en place affects communities since it embraces several development aspects, involving a great and varied number of beneficiaries, event though it’s dedicated to young people. The lack os such a place promoting culture is a current gap on territory. Growth and development of any location are based on awareness and human knowledge, representing fundamentals for the creation of a developing sustainble and long-lasting process. This gap on education, consciousness and awareness strongly affects growth of young people. This creation wants to be a call for those above, passing trough social activities such as preservation of customs and cultural exchange or awareness and consciousness. We rely on local potentials in order to enhance and regenerate it and this represents the final goal of the centre.
The structure will also have an exhibition space dedicated to local customs, being nowadays an endagered character and main feature of any place, representing its identity and richness, helping so the growth of young people and also allowing a turistic development aimed to widen village relationships.
In addition to those positive aspects linked to activities, the building process represents an open air workshop through the usage of building technologies and natural materials to get life conditions improved, paying attention on wastes in poor areas and getting a closer relationship with the surrounding environment. From bricklayers to women and volunteer participation will show a learnable technology for a sustainable development.

Project manager, architect: Raoul Vecchio 
Building manager: Mamath Ndiaye 
Workers team are composed by local people educated in sustainable costruction, the team is made up of: Malan Saminanko, Ousman Mballo, Omar Faty, Aliou Korobong.
Project by: Balouo Salo Humanitarian organization

The beneficiary community participated in the construction through volunteer days, taking part in works such as excavation, earth mobilization and raw earth finishing.
 Main Community  participants:
- Women's associations. In the village there are groups of women in each neighborhood, who carry out multidisciplinary activities to help the development of the village. The various groups are named after the various districts of Tanaff.
- Youth associations: Tanaff naa Banko is the association that brings together the various groups of young people in the village who carry out community awareness activities on the occasion of important events.
- The primary and secondary schools of Tanaff took part in the realization with site visits and recreational play activities.

Project website