Food Security Sierra Leone Project #28007

Food and Income for 500 Sierra Leone Farmers

by Seeds for Growth Foundation

Project Report | Jun 29, 2020
Surviving by fighting COVID-19

By Ben Bolland | Project manager

Repacking and distribution of rice, may 2020

COVID-19 determines daily life in Sierra Leone

Soon after publishing our Global-giving report in early March, the corona virus has taken over the world. The rural farmer families in Sierra Leone also having a dramatic time: instead of growing the crops and working towards a successful spring harvest, they suffer of hunger, disease and some villagers already died because of the corona-virus.

In contrast to a low number of official published corina cases and deaths (60 casualties and 1430 cases in the country per 29th of June), our local program manager already reported 4 deaths in april in his own relationship network in a chiefdom of 15,000 inhabitants.

And where Sierra Leone is mainly an informal economy, staying home is not an option: no daily income means no food!

Your support and GlobalGiving's exceptional grant help to survive !

Thanks to an exceptional COVID-19 grant from GlobalGiving in April, we were able to bring some relief in May by distributing rice to the farmers in Rochin, Malal chiefdom. Although the amounts of products may look small, this kind of support was very welcome during these dramatic time.

See the pictures, where local people help to repack and distribute the rice. Not always keeping safe distance in the rural areas ...

How to go forward during summer season?

At this moment we are preparing for a second round of rice distribution together with our local program manager. Therefore we’ll start a new funding campaign soon in July.
Of course we also aim to look beyond todays crisis and will discuss options with our local program manager how we can resuscitate the agricultural project after a disastrous harvest season of autumn 2019 and this dramatic spring.

So, during summer months we will focus on:

Support in the daily emergency, where needed and possible, and also:
Bring new hope and energy to the farming families by helping them to restart the cropping activities for autumnal season again.

Finally...

Thank you for supporting our cause, we appreciate your donation and sharing this news letter in your network!

Ben Bolland, president
Kapri Turay, secretary
Momodu Sheku Kamara, program manager in Sierra Leone

Rice repacking for distribution

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Mar 2, 2020
2020: a break through to growth again?

By Ben Bolland | project leader

Farmer walking home on a sandy road to Rochin

Thank you for opening the first project report in 2020.

After a disastrous second half of 2019, with heavy rain fall, and a bad harvest, we hope times get better for the rural farmer families in Sierra Leone this year.

Evaluation time...

After evaluating the first three years of the organization, the board has decided to focus on four fundamental pillars for the year 2020:

+ Staying supportive to the current group of about 150 farmer families, although the heavy rains caused bad harvest results in 2019. The bad harvest has resulted in a lower than 100% recovery of the loans and has pushed back the project support to a lower level of support for the new cropping season.

+ Expanding the current small board of two persons, with at least a third board member, to enhance governance, guarantee continuity and be able to divide the tasks better. The temporay internship role of mr. Edoka Jombo, a student of Wittenborg university, has supported us in renovating the website and other supporting activites. We aim to work on a more regular basis with Wittenborg for this kind of temporary support.

+ We also need to provide our program manager in Sierra Leone with better facilities, so that the continuity there can also be better safeguarded.

And… We would appreciate to develop a better understanding with you as our supporting network of donors.

Participate in a short survey?

We would like to ask you a few questions regarding our cause and the project we are supporting in rural areas of Sierra Leone.

1 What (more) would you like to know about Seeds for Growth?

2 Do you have ideas how we could better achieve our goals?

3 Would you like to discuss your ideas with us, for example by telephone or online meeting?

4 Are you interested to support our team as a volunteer?

We look forward to read your answers and ideas at emailadress: ben.bolland@bevon.nl

Sharing this report will warmly be appreciated!

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Dec 2, 2019
December 2019, a challenging year almost finished.

By Ben Bolland | Project leader

Postharvest handling during rainy days, oct, 2019

Thank you for opening this november newsletter. Hope you'll appreciate the project update and get to know our new, temporary team reinforcement, mr. Edoka Jombo.

Fall season 2019: heavy rains, flooded areas, damaged roads and loss of harvest results

The rainy summer/fall period in Sierra Leone this year was the heaviest of the last 10 years, as you may remember the photos, we reported in the previous newsletter.

This bad weather, in combination with lack of sufficient post harvest handling materials like tarpaulins and drying floors, caused severe losses of corn products, due to rotten and moulded grains. So only a part of it was fit for sale, and therefore the full repayment of the Seeds for Growth loan can not be made.

Of course this situation is not the fault of the farmers (it’s taken like a natural disaster), but the farmers agreed to take the burden for the survival of the SFGF project in the chiefdom.

See the photo above to get an impression of the disastrous results of the recent harvest.

Therefore we ask you to support us with your end-of-year donation to keep the current project on track with our support of the current 150 farmers and their families.

Introducing our new team member.

My name is Edoka Oyinkansola Jombo (photo below), originally from Nigeria and I live & study in the Netherlands. I’m currently supporting seeds for growth foundation activities as part of my Internship program. Coming from the Western part of Africa allows me to understand the impact Seeds for growth will have on individuals or families that are struggling with their daily lives.

Finally...

Thank you for supporting our cause, we appreciate your donation and sharing this news letter in your network!

Ben Bolland, president
Kapri Turay, secretary
Momodu Sheku Kamara, program manager
Edoka Jombo, communication officer

and 150 farmer families.....

Mr. Edoka Jombo, new team member, novemer 2019

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