Senegal: Here we come!

Training session by Mer et Monde before leaving for Senegal

As has happened for the past few years, a team of Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières Department of Accounting students is preparing to leave for Senegal. These students will be participating in a practical credited internship opportunity, which has been integrated into UQTR future accountants’ and directors’ training courses for more than seven years. This unique initiative is the product of a close collaboration between Chartered Professional Accountants Without Borders (CPAWB), Mer et Monde (M+M), and UQTR’s accounting teachers. These teachers were able to demonstrate the benefits of integrating a practical international experience in the education of future accountants to the university’s academic authorities.

So, May 4 will see a team of six graduates (this year, the entire team will be composed of young women) along with one of their teachers fly to Dakar, Senegal, for a three-week internship.

With the Senegalese families that will host and welcome them to Thies for the duration of their stay, the future accountants will put their knowledge and skills to the service of various local projects. Community initiatives by members of a vast network of organisations and associations that the local Mer et Monde team has supported over many years.

In a spirit of teranga, or the service, sharing and reciprocity that the Senegalese have made famous, program participants are very enthusiastic about sharing what they have learned and practiced in their classes and extremely open to discovering new approaches and other methods from the concrete experience of managing local community organizations in a totally different context than in Quebec. Intercultural experience sits at the core of the internship initiative and will be a challenge to be met on a daily basis.

As Océane, one of the program’s participants, put it, “This internship is a unique opportunity for me to combine my studies in accounting with an enriching human experience. I want to get involved in a concrete way, to develop my skills, and to evolve in a different context than my own.”

What with the intensification of the globalization of the economy and of international exchanges, the internship is a real service to local organizations and associations that can benefit from a free accounting and management helping hand. At the same time, this unique partnership offers young professional participants’ an exceptional opportunity to measure their strengths, discover new values and develop original skills as they prepare to enter an increasingly global job market.