About the Project

Click to listen to Nabi Nai, a traditional song recorded by Tony Vacca in Senegal

Cryan Photography

Click here for 2005-2006 Virtual Trip to Senegal

Have you always wanted to go to Africa? More specifically, have you always wanted a guided personal or family oriented experience in Senegal? We have developed a professional development opportunity that is unique and quite exciting. We have the privilege, luxury, and security of having our very own Massamba Diop as our Artistic Director and Guide to his homeland. We invite you to come along with us and really experience Senegal.

Arts Are Essential, Inc. and Tony Vacca’s World Rhythms, announce upcoming Senegal-America Project cultural/educational trips to Senegal.

This initiative began with a shared vision by Tony Vacca and Massamba Diop, a Senegalese drummer, who have collaborated since 1995 to further connections between the artists of two countries.

The Senegal-America Project, in partnership with Arts Are Essential, Inc., offers cultural/educational trips to Senegal for artists, educators, students, and others interested in understanding the Senegalese people and their cultures, and bringing us closer to acceptance.

Our Objectives

  • To support the arts and education of students, artists and educators on both sides of the Atlantic.
  • To promote and encourage growing awareness and acceptance.

— Trip participants engage in a variety of cultural experiences (dance classes, drumming classes, batik, lessons specific to the current traveler's interests), community and school visits, community service projects, trips to nature preserves, and meals at Massamba’s home.

— Some of our destinations include the Capital city of Dakar, the rural fishing village of Toubab Diallo, an incredible artist retreat on the West Coast, a horseback ride inland, and visits to several different types of communities with varying degrees of affluence and poverty. We go to Goree Island, an old slave-fortress, maintained by the government, that to this day still holds all the pain and sadness of the people who passed through the “door of no return.”

  • To create through concrete, specific support of time, energy and materials, a legacy of American students and adults helping to further the education of Senegalese students, educators, and artists.