Healing the Desert with Trees in Darfur

Thank you so much for all your generous support of our tree-planting projects in Darfur.  We are on the way to planting a community forest!

We are delighted to share a success story with you of a young girl in one of our villages, Fardal 2017.   It was essential to give direct help to Tuna and the children as soon as possible to make sure they did not go hungry - but we also wanted to help this little family long term:

Tuna  is 22 years old. She is unmarried and, after her mother died, is responsible for her 3 siblings. Tuna left school early to dedicate time to raising her brothers and help her deaf father. As one of our poorest families, Tuna and her father were chosen to be beneficiaries of Kids for Kids.

The family received 5 goats, a donkey, 2 blankets, 2 mosquito nets and 10 bars of soap from Kids for Kids. Tuna cares for her goats with her father and brothers and collects dry fodder to make a store for the winter and a shelter for the goats. She uses worm treatment twice a month for the goats. Through hard work, Tuna cares for her animals and managed to increase her flock to 20 goats. She was therefore able to give 5 goats to another family in 2019.

Tuna is able to give milk to her youngest brothers and has recently sold 2 Billy goats to pay for t-shirts, pyjamas, school uniform, school books and kindergarten fees for them. Tuna still has a flock of 13 goats.  

But, Darfur is at the forefront of global warming.   We felt we had to see if we could do something about global warming!  We are delighted that Tuna is feeling the benefit of our tree-planting project.

We have planted almost 500 fruit trees in Fardal 2017 to provide shade around huts where people live, the health centres and kindergartens.

Tuna's house is now surrounded by trees, shelthering her, her family and her animals from the hot desert sun. She has managed to make a garden beside her home where crops can also grow in the shade. Amazingly, Tuna has managed to cultivate Okra, cucumber and tomatoes for her little family to eat.

Just imagine how delicious these must taste to a family who normally survives on one scant meal of dry assida a day!

Tuna also helps her deaf father to cultivate the farm and produce Millett for home consumption plus ground nuts and sesame to sell in the market.

The goats benefit from the delicous undergrowth growing in the shade of the trees and Tuna's family are also now rearing chickens.   Her life has been transformed.

It is your donations that are helping families like Tuna's.

But there are many more families who need our support.   Let's help them with our life saving projects, our goats and chickens, blankets and farm tools but let's also do our best to change the environment long term. 

Please do donate to our tree-planting projects.

Together we really CAN help combat climate change, make Darfur green again and bring hope to children and their families.

Links:

• You CAN combat Climate Change in Darfur

Darfur is at the forefront of climate change, experiencing extreme heat and drought, followed by overwhelming floods causing devastations.   It is in the Sahel region of Africa which is particularly vulnerable to climate change and according to the UN, the temperature in this region is expected to rise by between 3C and 5C very soon. These warmer temperatures lead to a degradation of the land and an increase in desertification resulting in the desert encroaching into agricultural land. Climate change also impacts the length and timings of seasons, therefore, having a negative effect on crop growth, leading to food insecurity in the area.

In 2007 our CEO and founder Patricia Parker OBE  started the project of resuscitating the tree nursery in the village El Fasher and was the first to start funding the planting of trees again in Darfur. The aim after that first success was to create a community forest in each of the Kids for Kids villages to counteract the effects of climate change. 

We have been planting seedlings of various trees that are drought-resistant, provide shade and all have bi-products which are of benefit to the people who often have to walk miles for the water they need for the first two years before they have tap roots established enough to reach underground water.  Oil from the Neem tree, the leaves, fruit and seeds and bark from the Baobab and, most exciting of all,  the seeds of the Moringa tree can be used to purify water - and even citrus fruit from trees that we provide for people's huts.

One of the most sustainable ways to prevent desertification and land degradation is to stabilise the soil. Planting trees  increases the soil moisture in the area and stabilises the soil.  It has also been scientifically proven that planting trees helps to form a microclimate in the immediate vicinity of the trees by reducing the air temperature. Lowering the temperature of the soil means that more moisture remains within the ground creating a better and more fertile environment for growing crops, the basis of people’s income and diet in the villages of Darfur. Once established the trees can be underplanted, providing vegetables often in villages that have been unable to support them before.

The people in Darfur are subsistence farmers meaning that caring for the land is of paramount importance as they eat what they grow. We are showing that focusing on alleviating the effects of climate change, environmental degradation, and desert encroachment protects these farmers and their communities from current and future vulnerabilities.   In the vast IDP camps the green canopy above the huts transforms the environment. People were initially afraid that planting trees would attract birds that would eat their crops.   Now the people can eat birds eggs when conditions are at their worst.

In Darfur, a tree provides precious shade for people and animals. With our help, communities are now planting ‘green belts’ or community forests, around their villages to hold back the desert and provide precious fruit for the hungry months.  Some have even built on the concept and have a cash crop, Gum Arabic, a classic example of diversification to improve their chances in hard times.

A community forest is just the start of our work tackling the effects of climate in the remote villages of Darfur – we are teaching children the importance of the forests, so they grow up to nurture the returning wildlife and help the trees to grow and expand. This will be the legacy of Kids for Kids and we hope that the children of the future will continue in the guardianship of the trees in their community.