Well, to be honest, due to my recent travels, I don’t have a lot to show for it. Aside from my cook-stove project, which turned out to be a major success in Ndiam-Baba (the village right behind Sanguéré-Paul) there are no tangible or visible results from the time I have spent here. However, that by no means implies that I’ve been taking too many cat-naps. Throughout all of my traveling, I have still been working with my counterparts and I will certainly have a lot on my plate as soon as I get settled back at post.
Let me break it down for y’all.
At this point in time, I would consider myself as having three counterparts: Djida, Madame Tizi, and Samuel from “Environment, Research, and Development”. With each of these counterparts, I have a set of projects that will hopefully be lanced within the next month or two.
Djida: Denis Antoine Djida has been the counterpart of all of the previous volunteers in Sanguéré-Paul (I’m the fourth). He is a consultant/advisor for all of the GICs (Common Interest Groups, which in Sanguéré-Paul mostly consist of farming groups who own land together and work together to make a profit). He is also an agriculturist and a well-known, well-respected member of the community. We have a variety of general development projects planned together, based on the needs and requests of community members.
- Health Center: A couple of years ago, the US Embassy financed the construction of a health center in Sanguéré-Paul. The building is there, but to this day it remains empty and without staff. Djida and I hope that buy the end of my two years here, the health center will be up and running. Right now, that requires working with the Ministry of Health to push along the process of the “authorization” of the health center and to have staff affected there. Then we will work with neighboring health centers to find out what equipment is necessary and how to go about attaining that equipment.
- Water: This is an extremely serious issue in my village. My quartier in particular has zero water sources, and it’s a problem that affects me just as much as anyone else in village. The mayor is currently in contact with a Japanese organization that has agreed to finance most of a new water pump, as long as the community contributes 200,000cfa. Djida and I are working on setting up a water committee, encouraging people to contribute to the construction of the pump, and then finding someone to do surveillance so that it does not break as often as the others do. We hope to add multiple new potable water sources over the next two years.
- Agro-Pastoral Conflict: People in the area have two main livelihoods: agriculture or animal husbandry. Problem is, the cows, goats, and sheep need somewhere to graze, and often wander into people’s fields. Surveys and negotiations will have to be conducted in order to find a way for the cows and the crops to fruitfully coexist.
Madame Tizi: Madame Tizi started off as my community host,
and only recently transformed into a fantastic potential work partner. Her primary job is as the directress of the
nursery school in Bockle, a village just North of Sanguéré-Paul. However, she is the voluntary local president
of the Red Cross. She has had experience
with girls groups in the past and with counseling vulnerable girls and
women. Consequently, I invited her to
National Girls Forum in Limbé. After
this seminar, we came up with numerous projects that we would like to get
started on as soon as possible.
- Girls Group: Next month we’ll be commencing our girls group for the older girls at the primary school (ages 13-15). The purpose of this group will be to empower girls and teach them about the importance of their own education, their own rights, and smart decision-making. The goal is to reduce the amount of girls that marry or become pregnant at a young age, and to increase the amount of girls that attend high school.
- Women’s Literacy Group: Madame Tizi was inspired by the project of another volunteer, Halima, and would like to replicated the project in our own village.
- Money Management: We are hoping to work with 5 to 10 women who sell things at the carrefour each day (fish, beignets, mangoes), and teach about budgeting skills and saving money. If we have success with our first group, then we will expand to teach others as well.
Samuel and
‘Environment, Research, and Development’ (ERD): ERD popped into my Peace Corps service as a
happy accident, declaring that they were starting an anti-deforestation project
in five villages near me. I wrote a post a while back talking about building improved cook-stoves, which to be honest, failed in 3 of
the 5 villages, but were potentially a success in Sanguéré-Paul (we’re still
waiting on our follow up), and were a huge success in Ndiam-Baba (with
approximately 80% of the households in the village constructing and using their improved
cook-stoves). ERD continues to be
incredibly motivated and interested in working with a Peace Corps volunteer,
not just to have me as a someone to follow up on their projects in village, but
also as someone living in the community who can better understand the needs and
wants of the community and help to mobilize community members. ERD will also serve as an awesome resource for any environmental project that I plan to undertake.
- Improved Cook-stoves: ERD has already completed the implementation of their cook-stove project in an effort to have people use less wood fuel and to cut back on the health effects from smoky fires. While this project was wildly successful in Ndiam-Baba, I would have liked for it to catch on more in the other villages as well, especially Sanguéré-Paul. My plan is to meet with small groups of three to five women who are friends and/or neighbors, and work with women to create their own improved cook-stoves all within the same day. This way, the women will be helping each other with the construction (which really takes thirty minutes maximum), and we will be able to drastically increase the amount of households in the village using these improved cook-stoves.
- Tree Nurseries: ERD plans on creating tree nurseries at the primary schools in each of the five villages in their project plan. This will increase the amount of trees in the area while also teaching young children about the importance of trees and how to plant them. There will be a local environmental committee in each village to help with the follow-up and teaching of the children.
- Vegetable Gardens: The goal is also to create a small vegetable garden at each of the primary schools as an income generating activity. This will help to support to nursery project, though I am also hoping that it will serve to teach the children a bit about nutrition and a balanced diet as well.
- HIV/AIDS Awareness: All three counterparts are interested in doing some sort of HIV/AIDS sensitization campaign in the area, and I’ve decided it would be a great idea if they could sit down together and team up on that.
Myself: There are some projects that I will
implement myself, and use whoever or whatever I can find as resources.
- Mango Drying: I’m in the process of constructing some dryers so that I can make dried fruit. I’ve heard that by the end of mango season, there are more mangoes than the village can possibly consume, and a lot end up rotting. By drying the mangoes, we will be able to conserve this nutritious food source, I will have myself some tasty snacks, and hopefully some women in the village will have a new product to sell! Of course I will not limit myself to just mangoes, though mangoes will be the most easily available and cost effective.
- Environmental Clubs: There are environmental clubs at both the primary school and the high school, but they are inactive and have no facilitator. I would like to restart these clubs and and see what kinds of environmental projects the kids in Sanguéré-Paul can get involved in.
- Home Garden: Once I construct a higher fence around my house so that the goats can no longer jump over it and destroy my yard, I’d like to plant some seeds and experiment with my gardening skills. I’d like to grow local vegetables as well as attempt to grow some seeds that Mommy Dearest sent from the US so that I can introduce my friends to the kinds of vegetables that I’m used to back home
- Community Garden: I’ll be working with friends and neighbors to grow some local crops on a shared plot of land. We have not yet decided what crops we’ll be growing, but it will be a combination of local staples and nutritional veggies.
Sounds like some great projects and you are working with three great people. You are going to be a busy girl once you get back to Sanguere-Paul. Drink water and eat some protein. Love -- Guess Who.
ReplyDelete