By Paulomi Bhattacharyya | CREATE! Development Associate & Project Leader
“CREATE! has brought us from zero to great things” says Adji Sall, a garden cooperative member from Walo. This change of course did not happen overnight. Walo has been a CREATE! partner community since 2014. Thanks to your generous support, Walo has been able to move towards self-sufficiency and will “graduate” from our programs next year. This path towards graduation started through access to clean abundant water.
Situated in the Fatick-Kaolack region of Senegal, Walo faces adverse weather conditions with rainfall amounting to just 11-16 inches a year. Climate change has resulted in this rainfall to also become erratic. In a region where seasonal rainfall has traditionally been the only source of water for agriculture, maintaining a reliable source of nutritious vegetable production had become difficult for Walo before they partnered with CREATE!. In order to eat vegetables, the community members would have to buy them from the markets in Kaolack or Guinguineo. But things changed once they had access to water year round.
The community of Walo has been fortunate to have a well with abundant water. After its rehabilitation and the installation of the solar-powered water pumping system, the community now has access to 20,000 liters of water every day on average. This water is used both for drinking purposes as well as for irrigation. Most members like Adji Sall get about 20 liters of water every day from the well for household use. The community has seen an improvement in their health since they started drinking this water. This water is also helping the people of Walo to produce a year-round variety of fruits and vegetables, leading to better health and nutrition outcomes. Walo produced nearly 400 pounds of fruits and vegetables in the first quarter of 2019. This was possible because of the annual supply of water as well as the training the community members received from the CREATE! technicians on production techniques. The community now has a fresh source of vegetables that are naturally grown and are free or much cheaper than the vegetables from the markets.
Water has also helped Walo embark on a reforestation campaign every rainy season with the help of the CREATE! technicians and the Ministry of Water and Forestry in Senegal. In 2018, Walo planted more than 2000 tree saplings in and around their community.
Access to water has changed the lives of the people of Walo. It has not only improved their food security and health, but has also given them economic opportunities to explore within their communities. This has reduced the need to migrate to bigger cities or other countries in search of work. As Adji Sall mentions, before CREATE!, she used to work in Dakar, but now she can work in her own community garden and take care of her children. This is the change that we at CREATE! envision for all our communities, a change that is being made possible through our generous donors like you.
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