Isabelle Sultan, project manager on danone.communities projects in Senegal, is gving us some news about the last born of them : Lemateki.

The project Lemateki (Senegal) is on standby to start a pilot phase in late March to June 2011. This phase will help evaluate the attractiveness of the model and refine the proposed business plan. This step will give the green light for social investors to gather around Enda Graf Sahel and danone.communities, and to give birth tomorrow, the Lemateki social business.

What is the ambition of this project? By 2018, it aims to:

-          Valorize 1180 tons of value to local raw materials (cereals, pulses, sugar and milk)

-          Create a sixty jobs

-          and promote women's entrepreneurship through distribution. Some facts :

o   66% of urban schools in Senegal will be concerned

o   through 1250 micro-entrepreneurs – who will take an additional income with benefits –

o   The product is a fortified snack sold 50Fcfa (7.5 euro cents)

o   that would be made ​​available to a potential of 535 000 children 6 to 12 years.

The economic equation will be tight. And hybrid forms of financing play a big role in initiating the project.