CREATE! is excited to announce our newest community partnership! In late April, CREATE!’s Senegal field team signed a Memorandum of Understanding with leaders in the village of Mboss. Through extensive meetings with local leaders, our field technicians formulated specialized training, activities, and project support to help women develop methods and strategies of community self-development that are based on local needs, knowledge, participation, and social-mobilization.
The village of Mboss is located just south of the town of Gossas, the location of CREATE!’s Senegal office. About 80 women committed to participating in CREATE! training programs in this community. This group includes women from Mboss, Gossas, and other small surrounding villages. These women have demonstrated their commitment to CREATE!’s philosophy of self-development by starting their own dry season garden on land donated by community leaders and by building, using, and maintaining efficient clay-sand improved cookstoves.
Women in the village of Mboss are eager to begin agricultural activities in their new garden site. In the past week, they have been working to fence the one-hectare garden site and clear it of brush. Next, CREATE! field technicians will work with community volunteers and a traditional well digger to rehabilitate a well in the garden site. After the well is rehabilitated, CREATE! will install a solar powered pumping system and gravity-fed irrigation system. Once access to clean, abundant, and affordable water is secured, CREATE! field technicians will begin to instruct women in sustainable agriculture techniques.