Senegal Live, Learn, and Play (USAID)

Live, Learn & Play: Sustainable, Scalable Basketball for Youth Development (LLP) was a public-private partnership between USAID and the National Basketball Association that trained young people between the ages of 13 and 18 in leadership, gender awareness, and equality, as well as community participation through basketball. JSI implemented LLP in Senegal, engaging 1,595 youth and training more than 240 coaches in five regions of Senegal (Thiès, Dakar, Louga, Kaffrine and Kolda). Live, Learn, and Play

The goal of LLP Senegal was to engage young people in their communities. By using basketball as a platform to teach life skills to youth between the ages of 13 and 15, the LLP program built skills that instill confidence, advocates the importance of education and literacy, drives leadership development and promotes conflict mitigation, inclusion, gender equality, values, and social responsibility among Senegalese youth. This three-year global development project used a cascade model to train coaches who can promote positive youth development through basketball. Of the 1,595 students engaged, 583 students participated through their schools and 1,012 youth were in basketball clubs.

JSI worked to instill local ownership through our local partner, the SEED (Sports for Education and Economic Development in Senegal) project. Founded in 2009, the SEED project uses education and basketball to help youth succeed in middle and high school and achieve their potential as leaders and citizens. Through building the organizational and technical capacity of the SEED project, JSI worked to build long-term sustainability, replicability, and scalability of the LLP program.