Sakila village had a problem with soil erosion. The 150,000 villagers who live skattered in the beautiful foothills of the Mount Meru volcano, are primarily subsistence farmers and livestock keepers. In recent years, rains have been washing their rich soil down into the valley below, leading to degradation of their land and less productivity. A World Food Programme (WFP) Food for Assets program has been employing villagers to dig contours into the hillside – they pay them with food for their families. Although a lot of labor goes into making these contours, the benefits have great. Whereas previously they were able to produce only about 3 bags of maize per acre, now they are able to produce 15. Some villagers at first did not want the contours dug into their land, but when they saw their neighbors’ production increase, they joined the projects as well. Ambassador Lane and the journalists accompanying him went to see the contours and then were warmly welcomed by some of the villagers. The Ambassador also helped distribute the food they were receiving in exchange for their days of worked.
This woman has impressed many people with her strength and determination. Maybe her name has helped her! Fortunata is a single woman raising three children in the village of Leki Tatu, in the Arusha region of Tanzania. She was struggling to make ends meet by farming ½ an acre of rice, until she joined the World Food Programme (WFP) Food for Asset program – it has turned her life around. Thanks to the new irrigation scheme for the village and with the help of best farming practices she was also taught, Fortunata was able to properly farm her small ½ acre rice plot. The production of her small plot improved so much that has earned enough money to build herself a new brick home to replace her mud hut (she keeps the chickens there now) and purchase two more acres of land. Now she can also pay to send her children to school.
This World Food Programme (WFP) Food for Asset program enables villagers of Leki Tatu in the Arusha region of Tanzania to improve their agriculture and nutrition by creating an irrigation scheme and community fishing ponds. Villagers are encouraged to work on constructing irrigation canals and fish ponds in exchange for food - they are paid a daily ration of maize, beans and vegetable oil for the work they do. Through the irrigation scheme the farmers have access to water on a regular basis in a drought prone area. Income generated from the sale of Tilapia fish from the community fish ponds goes towards a collective fund for the community. There are now 108 fish ponds in the village. The fish also means households can introduce much needed variety into thier diet.
Radio journalists Igor Strauss from France and Benjamin Jumbe of Uganda interview Rogatus Muhindi who is implementing the contour project.
The contours that are preventing erosion.
Women dancing in Sakila village
 |
No comments:
Post a Comment