In CREATE!’s new partner community of Walo, women joyously anticipate their new economic and educational opportunities available from CREATE! staff members.
2015 looks to be an exciting year for CREATE!’s programs in rural Senegal!
CREATE! field technicians are already working with community members in our new partner villages of Walo, Gagnick Mack, and Darou Diadji. Community residents have cleared and prepared land for cooperative gardens, where they will learn to cultivate vegetables using sustainable techniques.
Over the next year, CREATE! field staff plan to make great progress towards community self-sufficiency in Walo, Gagnick Mack, and Darou Diadji. Our agricultural technicians will soon begin holding extensive training sessions in sustainable agriculture. With this new knowledge and continual support from CREATE! staff, women in these communities will be able to plan a market garden and then plant, nurture, harvest, and sell their own vegetables.
This year, CREATE! will also provide access to clean, abundant supplies of water in these communities using solar powered pumps and gravity-fed irrigation systems. CREATE! field technicians will also train community members in techniques needed to establish tree nurseries and living fences.
CREATE!’s existing partner communities are also expected to thrive in 2015. These five communities are now successfully producing vegetables from their cooperative gardens and selling them at local markets. In most communities, residents are also participating in Voluntary Savings and Lending Associations (VSLA). In three communities, women are also cooperatively producing poultry, which they then sell in local markets. The communities of Fass Kane, Fass Koffe, and Diender have been so successful in their project activities that CREATE! field staff are confident that cooperative members will be able to assume full responsibility for all project activities by the end of the year.
Thanks to your support, CREATE! programs will continue to grow and thrive throughout 2015!