You may have heard the old adage, “it takes a village to raise a child.” Here at CREATE!, we believe that it takes a global village to raise up communities that have been negatively impacted by the effects of climate change. And indeed, we have seen the amazing changes that are possible when the global community comes together to help those in need.
Since 2014, we have been fortunate enough to partner with Vibrant Village Foundation (VVF), which invests in the potential of communities around the world by supporting villages in the areas of nutrition and health, clean water, agriculture, education, arts, and economic development. VVF supports a portion of CREATE! programs in all of our partner communities, truly bringing together the global community with local villages. This past week, Vibrant Village Foundation Program Officer Mariéme Daff got the grand tour of CREATE!’s partner villages with CREATE! Founder Barry Wheeler. Check out some of the photos from her visit!
Mariéme (back row, second from the left) enjoyed meeting CREATE!’s field staff in Senegal and learning more about the process of transforming a village from a desert environment into a lush and thriving oasis.
In CREATE!’s new partner village of Santhie, CREATE! field technicians show Barry and Mariéme the community’s newly rehabilitated well, which is now bringing water up through a solar powered pump, and into their 5,000-liter reservoir.
Dahra is another one of CREATE!’s newest partner communities, having just joined this year. Here, Mariéme got to see what a partner community looks like early on in the process, before many of the programs have gotten started. With the help of CREATE! technicians, community volunteers have just finished rehabilitating their well, installing solar panels, and a water reservoir. When she returns next year, they will have a thriving garden, trees, and chickens to show off!
Mariéme was impressed by the thriving fruit trees growing around the village of Darou Diadji, which first partnered with CREATE! in 2014 with the support of the Vibrant Village Foundation.
In Darou Diadji, Mariéme’s visit was celebrated with joyful music and dancing by the members of the community garden cooperative. Women sing and clap, beating on buckets and drums with their children, friends, and family members. What a way to celebrate gratitude!
In this week of Thanksgiving, we can’t help but to feel grateful not only for the ongoing support of our donors and partner organizations that help to make these programs possible, but also to all the hardworking women and men in our partner communities. Time and again, we are inspired and humbled by the amazing things that are possible when a global village comes together to make lasting change.