Associates in Research and Education for Development, Inc.

Associates in Research and Education for Development Inc. (ARED) is a local NGO based in Dakar, Senegal. ARED designs and manages programs in adult non-formal education and children's literacy, specializing in the production of high-quality pedagogical, educational, and leisure reading materials in several West African languages. This organizational effectiveness grant will allow ARED to develop a comprehensive communications strategy and build skills of its senior management team to better communicate the breadth and depth of its work to the general pubic, media, donors, public officials, and the private sector in countries where it operates throughout West Africa.

Associates in Research and Education for Development Inc. (ARED) has provided literacy training and citizen education in Senegal for nearly twenty years. ARED’s goal is to demonstrate an effective model for bilingual education in grades 1”“4 that can be adopted by the Senegalese government and supported by donors. In the past three years, ARED has developed an instructional model and materials to improve children’s learning in reading and math in grades 1”“3 in two local languages. ARED has now expanded its program to reach 114 classrooms and has entered into discussions with the Senegalese Ministry of Education and donor agencies in light of recent commitments to bilingual education. With this grant, ARED would complete development and testing of its instructional model by adding modules and learning materials for early-grade math, reading, civics, and social studies instruction and also expand to 100 more classrooms. In addition, this grant would help ARED continue to build monitoring and evaluation systems and introduce new strategic communications and outreach.