The Prison Project
 
Senegal's state penitentiaries often lack water, toilets, adequate space for living and recreation, and medical services.  These prisons also usually lack organized rehabilitation activities for prisoners, which increases the likelihood that detainees will become repeat offenders.
 
An international agreement addressing prison conditions in Africa (Article 319 of the 1990 Kampala Declaration) allows prisons to form partnerships with organizations and NGOs like Tostan to provide rehabilitation services.  These services encourage the successful reintegration of prisoners into society upon their release.  Tostan has implemented the Prison Project in four prisons in Senegal, helping to better the lives of detainees, in and out of prison, through family mediation, human rights education, and skills training.  
 
Since 1999, Tostan’s Community Empowerment Program  (CEP) has been in place in the Thiès Correctional Facility. Impressed by the positive results of the program, the Director of the Senegalese State Penitentiary System requested an extension of the program throughout the prisons of Senegal.  Currently, the program is in place at men’s and women’s prisons in Dakar, Thiès, and Rufisque, Senegal.   
 
Aimed at reducing recidivism and restoring agency to detainees, Tostan's program covers human rights-based basic education, problem solving, hygiene, health, literacy, and management skills, family mediation, and income-generating activities.

Detainees are stripped of their sense of agency and dignity in their own lives by poverty and want, then further marginalized and often rejected by their families and communities because of their confinement. After release, they often see no alternatives than to commit offenses that lead them back to prison.

Tostan aims to reduce incidences of repeat criminal offences and to contribute to the successful integration of former detainees through the facilitation of human-rights based, non-formal education classes in the prisons. The program has been praised by Senegal's Administration Penitentaire for successfully reducing the number of repeat-offenders, and seven prisons in western Senegal formally wrote to Tostan Senegal and requested the expansion of the project to their facilities. Tostan currently operates in 4 out of 34 prisons across Senegal and is seeking to expand the zone of intervention.
 
Women prisoners in particular, who are often rejected by their families because of their confinement, are empowered through human rights education and through trainings in income-generating activities—including sewing, knitting, hair styling, fabric dyeing, and craft making—which give them a brighter outlook for their futures.  Upon release, participants also have access to microcredit loans—often funded by the economic initiatives of those still incarcerated—for the establishment of small businesses.  In addition to gaining essential practical and vocational skills, prisoners finish the program with a renewed sense of dignity, giving them new opportunities for success as they reenter their communities. 

 
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