Clean Water and Community Gardens in Senegal

CREATE!

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One Day’s Wages is partnering with CREATE! to provide clean, abundant, and affordable water and a year-round supply of fresh, locally grown vegetables, fruits, and poultry to 3,000 people living in three rural communities in Senegal.

Why Senegal?

More than 80% of households in rural Senegal rely on seasonal agriculture as their mode of income, with 75% of the farming families relying solely on rain to irrigate their crops. Unpredictable rainfall patterns brought about by climate change have led to decreased access to water and limited agricultural production all over rural Senegal. Rainfall in 2017 was less than average throughout the country leading to drought like situations in many regions. Lack of water has prevented cultivation of nutritious vegetables, which in turn has led to malnutrition. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), together with UNICEF and World Food Program (WFP), estimates that in 2018, there will be 548,000 food insecure people in Senegal, with moderate acute malnutrition being 345,000. In such severe conditions, there is an urgent need to improve the life and livelihoods of the rural poor in a sustainable way.  

 

ODW + CREATE!

One Day’s Wages is partnering with CREATE! to provide access to clean water and target issues of hunger and food security in the communities of Diabel, Mbossedji and Pakha in the Fatick region of Senegal. It is a part of CREATE!’s integrated community development program designed to achieve long-term self-sufficiency through sustainable training and improved livelihoods.

This project will rehabilitate existing wells and install solar pumps, making clean water available to the communities year round for household and agricultural needs. The availability of water will help the communities grow vegetables throughout the year in newly formed cooperative gardens. Cooperative groups of 50-100 members each will receive training and supervision on sustainable agricultural practices. This training will ensure the members have skills to grow fresh, nutritious vegetables in their gardens, improving food security and health of the 3,000 residents. It will also provide new and expanded economic opportunities so that members can supplement their household income and support their families through the sale of vegetables in local markets.

 

Join us!

Join us in helping improve the life and livelihoods of the rural communities in Senegal. CREATE! needs your help to raise 50% ($29,480) of the total grant of $58,960 to provide clean water and build community gardens for the 3,000 residents of Diabel, Mbossedji and Pakha. One Day’s Wages has pledged to match the remaining 50%, which is reflected in the progress bar above.

Meet Seynabou

Seynabou has been vice president of the Diender garden cooperative since her village first started working with CREATE! in 2010. Like many women in rural Senegal, Seynabou didn’t have a formal occupation before she began working with CREATE!, so it was difficult to support her family. She would spend her days gathering large loads of firewood, followed by many hours of cooking the family meal over an open fire. Some days she might make the long trek to the market in Gossas on foot, by donkey cart, or riding on the back of a motorcycle to buy vegetables or other ingredients shipped in from abroad.

“I used to eat vegetables without knowing where they were grown,” says Seynabou, “but since I started working with CREATE! I have the ability to grow vegetables myself. Our children no longer suffer from malnutrition because they have the possibility to eat fresh vegetables every day.” Seynabou often has excess vegetables from the garden that she sells on the market in Gossas. She invests her profits in her Voluntary Savings and Lending Association (VSLA) group, and earns interest on her savings.

With the ability to grow her own food, save her own money, and save firewood and time by cooking on her improved cookstove that she built with training from CREATE!’s field technicians, Seynabou reports that she has seen her quality of life greatly improve. Over the past eight years, women in her community have been working to continue to increase their capacity for sustainability and self-sufficiency.

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One Day’s Wages exists to alleviate extreme poverty by investing in, amplifying, and coming alongside locally led organizations in underserved communities.

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