By Kaitlyn Grigsby-Hall | CREATE! Project Leader & Grants Manager
“Our village used to cut down many trees for firewood because we cooked over open fires that were very wasteful.” Absa of Darou Diadji adds, “Thanks to our improved cookstoves and access to abundant water, we are able to have an annual tree planting campaign. There are now lots of trees in Darou Diadji!”
Thanks to your support, hundreds of families in rural Senegal now have clean, abundant, and affordable water! Throughout CREATE!’s partner communities, access to abundant water helps cooperative gardens thrive and ensures that families can eat fresh, nutritious vegetables year-round.
While clean, abundant, and affordable water is essential for growing vegetables, it is also important for nurturing the tree seedlings that our communities plant during the annual reforestation campaign. During the dry season, community members raise between 2,000 and 3,000 seedlings in tree nurseries located in each community garden site. Women rely on water from CREATE!’s rehabilitated wells to help the tree seedlings thrive in the hot, dry weather of the long Senegalese dry season. Now that the annual rainy season has started, cooperative members are working with CREATE! staff to plant thousands of tree seedlings within the garden sites and throughout their communities. Trees provide shade, moderate temperatures, and produce fruit and nuts. They also serve as windbreaks and living fences in community garden sites.
Seni, 18, thanks the annual CREATE! tree planting campaign and her improved cookstove for helping the community “stop chopping down trees and creating deforestation.” She continues: “CREATE! helps communities develop themselves; I wish for the success of CREATE! around Senegal!”
The communities of Bac Sambadior, Ndéguélère, and Keur Daouda dream of establishing their own tree nurseries next year. Will you help them? Your donation will help CREATE! provide access to clean, abundant, and affordable water so that rural communities can gain new agricultural skills and economic livelihoods. Your support makes a difference!
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