Co-Create Dakar: The Recrayassion project

In 2021, an initiative by de Rijksdienst voor Ondernemers Netherlands brought Dutch and Senegalese students, together in an innovation Bootcamp to co-develop circular and innovative solutions for concrete circular challenges of the city of Dakar. The project focused on waste management, compost usage, and the development of biogases from animal and water waste. In 7 groups, the students worked on the challenges brought by the 7 corporate project owners. This article introduces one of the innovative solutions that one of the teams brought forward.

The Project owner.

Out of all the projects in Senegal, Recreyassion is one of the best examples of circular entrepreneurship at an SME level. The founder and designer Yacine Faye was among the first to democratize second-hand clothing and fight against fast fashion in Senegal. The start-up aims to set up physical and digital stores while organizing events showcasing Senegalese talents and their circular fashion creations. Recreyassion also allows customers to sell, buy and trade clothing items with each other on the same principle as Vinted. Always on the looking out for circular innovations in the fashion industry, the start-up wanted to get ideas from the teams of future entrepreneurs.

Yacine Faye CEO of  Recreyassion.
Source yacfaye
Yacine Faye CEO of  Recreyassion.
Source yacfaye

The Team’s Concept

Global Challenges, local solutions

As one could expect, the fashion in Dakar is quite different from European standards. this is where cross-cultural collaboration was most visibly essential in the Dakar Project. One of the students’ teams relied heavily on the cultural knowledge of the Senegalese team members. They pointed out that the popular African garment “Boubou” was often making use of a color pattern called ndiakhass. From then on, the team came up with the idea of collecting items of clothing, and create “hybrid” Boubous, which alternate cotton with fabric scraps. In some ways, it resembles the work of western companies like Cotopaxi which makes use of remnant textiles from other manufacturers to create their own products.

The Team’s Concept.

The Bigger Picture.

Making fast-fashion unfashionable

From the “made in Senegal” mentality to reusing scraps as part of new items of clothing, this project is a clear application of circular thinking. As a consumer product, it directly challenges people’s perceptions of waste and the true cost of buying new. While many are already fighting against the production standards of the fast fashion industry, it is still not widespread in Senegal. With the help of the Cheikh Anta Diop University in collecting clothes and potentially having access to a work location, such a project could very well be the start of a second-hand trend among the new generations of consumers in Dakar. If anything, this team project shows that simple and actionable projects can become important drivers of circularity.

The project encapsulated multiple circular goals.
The project encapsulated multiple circular goals.
The project encapsulated multiple circular goals.

Learn more about the other Co-Create Dakar projects right here >>