On the way to Dakar many of the competitors fall in love with Africa as they pass through fascinating landscapes and meet up with captivating people.  
Early on, the event’s creators wanted to give back to Africa what the continent had offered them in terms of pure emotion. The Dakar rally’s founder Thierry Sabine was well aware of how difficult life was in Africa and recognized that the rally could be a precious tool.

Therefore, in September 2002, Amaury Sport Organisation (ASO) and SOS SAHEL International France joined to create Actions Dakar.
The aim to protect the natural resources, the improvement of the quality of life and especially hygiene, are the main goals of the program. The different actions are initiated and run by locals with a view to a lasting development.

Early on, the event’s creators wanted to give back to Africa what the continent had offered them in terms of pure emotion. The Dakar rally’s founder Thierry Sabine was well aware of how difficult life was in Africa and recognized that the rally could be a precious tool.

“ACTIONS DAKAR” finds an ever-widening echo with rally partners and competitors: Henkel have contributed to actions ever since the company began its in involvement in the 2005 event.

SOS SAHEL use simple and proven methods that are ideally adapted to life in the Sahel and to extreme "conditions of use" (dust and heat). To assure truly local project supervision, SOS SAHEL prioritizes the training of local people (in agricultural techniques and business management) and the reinforcement of peasant or village organizations in its projects.

This year, the organisers of the rally have decided to support a project in Louga, a region located in Northern Senegal in West Africa, where the peasant groups in the villages of Léona and Wakhaldiam will get help to stop overexploitation of the land and fight against soil degradation because of the drought and the erosion. The program aims to preserve and reinforce natu-ral resources in the forest, reduce the need of firewood consumption and fertilise the soil in natural way.

Christian Scholze, Head of Marketing Communications at Henkel, hands over a 4.339 Euro donation cheque made out to SOS SAHEL. This budget will be applied to a forest and soil protection program including creation of a tree nursery, production of 25 types of forest and fruit trees, plantation of a 1,5 km protective strip of trees around the land as well as the construction of "enchanced stoves" (an enchanced stove is a homemade clay stove designed to re-duce firewood consumption by 50 % ).