Remember this blog entry from February 2010 about the beginnings of my food security project? And this one from May 2010 about waiting for people to get motivated about doing this project? And this one from December 2010 where I may have gotten on my soapbox during a post about the frustrations of this project? Alhumdulliliah, the wheels are officially turning a bit faster, as the Fodé Bayo School and Health Hut Garden Project’s grant is written and sent in. By the end of this month, the Peace Corps SPA committee will review all submitted grant proposals, and (hopefully) by the beginning of February, let me know whether or not my project has been approved. Then, it’s usually another six week waiting period for the grant money to come in, and then the fence construction actually begins. I know, difficult to believe at this point.
Below is the basic information from the SPA grant proposal. I didn’t include all of the little numbers (budget, persons effects/involved) in this post, but if you’re interested in that information you can email me and I’ll be more than happy to email you the whole nitty gritty. Be gentle on my writing – I realize that the longer I’m here, the more my english skills fail, but after three days working on this application, crossed-eyes won over perfect syntax. I’ll keep you updated as to if/when the project gets approved. Hurrah!
Small Project Assistance (SPA) Grant Proposal
Country: Senegal
Fiscal Year: 2011
USAID Program Element: 4.5.2, Agricultural Sector Productivity
SPA Project Title: Fodé Bayo School and Health Hut Garden Project
Community Group: Mere d’Eleves & Groupement de la Case de Sante
Project Start Date: 24-Dec-10
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Questionnaire:
1) What community-identified priority does this SPA Project address? What is the goal of the project?
The priority of the Fode Bayo school and health hut garden project is to increase nutrition standards by providing secure areas for year-round school and health-hut gardens. The target populations are the students of the elementary school and the residents of the five communities that the Fode Bayo health hut serves (Bantan Kilin, Sarre Hoba, Sarre Ansu, Sarre Pathe, Sinthian Aly), specifically: pregnant mothers, children, the elderly, and sick members of the community. The goals of this project are (1) to decrease the community’s levels of malnutrition, and (2) to increase local human capital in gardening techniques and improved nutritional practices. In order to achieve these goals, we will: (A) use the proposed garden spaces to establish moringa beds for nutrition trainings and consumption; (B) demonstrate improved garden techniques such as permaculture practices that will improve the variety of vegetables grown and increase the garden yields, (C) enhance the nutritional value of school lunches.
2) What are the objectives of this project? List the principal tasks you and the community group will undertake to reach your objectives.
As stated in the PROSPERE project framework, the over-arching purpose of any project throughout a health or environmental education volunteer’s service is to “improve the health and environmental conditions of Senegalese communities in order to have a positive impact on their well-being.” The Fode Bayo school and health hut garden project has two main objectives: (1) to specifically address PROSPERE’s second project goal of improving communities’ nutritional status, and (2) to enhance Fode Bayo’s and the surrounding communities’ food security through “integrated, effective, and sustainable approaches” to gardening (as stated on http://www.pcsenegal.org/food_security/). The principal tasks that me, my village of Fode Bayo, and the five surrounding villages will undertake to ensure that this project reaches its objectives revolve around the “three key aspects of food security: availability of food year-round, economic and physical access to food, and utilization of nutritious options” (as stated on http://www.pcsenegal.org/food_security).
To reach the first objective of improving communities’ nutritional status, we will: (A) use local experts (e.g. trained gardeners, Eaux et Forets workers, master farmers in the Kolda region) to establish and teach other community members how to create moringa beds for intensive leaf production, (B) create demo moringa beds to allow health relais and community health workers to continue to lead nutrition trainings on cooking healthy foods and preparing nutritious meals using moringa – trainings will be for community members with particular emphasis towards mothers, pregnant women, and relais, (C) use local experts and agriculture PCVs to train community members on permaculture gardening techniques in order to increase the variety and diversity of the types of nutritious foods grown in the gardens.
To reach the second objective of enhancing Fode Bayo’s and the surrounding communities’ food security, we will: (A) scrupulously construct the permanent-grilage fencing so that the gardens will be secure from animal destruction year-round (local livestock being the biggest threat to local gardens), (B) use local experts and agriculture PCVs to train community members (e.g. relais and the women’s group) on permaculture gardening techniques in order to create more self-sustainable, durable, and diverse gardens that will generate higher yields.
3) How will the project contribute to building skills and capacity within the community?
Though the Fode Bayo school and health hut garden project is a simple one, from the beginning, the organization of this project has taken longer than expected because of my village’s commitment to being involved in every step of the process. From our first planning meeting with local masons in June of 2010, our women’s group, health hut group, and my counterpart have wanted to discuss and go over every price, garden “blue-print,” and idea for our community contribution to the project with a fine-toothed comb and many glasses of tea. By the time the planting season arrived, a consensus was still not reached, so the project got put on hold until after the harvest. While at the time this pace was frustrating for me because I wanted to see the project get off the ground, in retrospect, my village’s dedication to be involved in every aspect of project is cause for celebration. Naturally, there were a few people that wanted me to just take over, write the grant, and get things done with, but those people were a minority; my village and the key groups involved have taken ownership of the fact that this project is theirs, not mine. The fact that most people see me as a facilitator to bring the project to fruition (i.e. write the grant as none of my community members are literate enough to do so themselves) and not its driving force is a rare perception in aid-receiving communities. Among all of the capacity building that has and will take place throughout the duration of this project, the slow change in the mindset of “Give us something development group!” to “Help us do something we want to do development group!” is a behavior change that will enable members of my community to take ownership and control of future projects instead of laying back as un-involved receivers. This “skill” of having the confidence to ask for a voice in projects and the drive to see projects that the community identifies realized, is rare in Senegal; I am confident that this collective attitude will allow my little community to bring their lives into the higher standard of living.
Members of the six communities involved in this project will be receiving an array of new skills as they participate in the process of turning the school and health hut plots into functioning gardens. Grilage fences in our area are notorious for being flimsy and poorly installed, so the local mason who is constructing the grilage, doors, and pickets in a nearby Mandinka village has agreed to meticulously oversee and teach the community members how to properly set up the fencing. In addition, relais from the Fode Bayo health hut who are already active and knowledgable in conducting causeries about the benefits, uses, and cooking possibilities with moringa, will be able to take advantage of new, abundant resources in order to teach a whole new population of mothers, pregnant women, and children about moringa. In the gardens, local experts and agriculture PCVs will bring the concepts and practices of permaulture to my community – a gardening practice that until this point has never been introduced in my area.
4) How will the community be able to sustain the activities and/or benefits of this project?
From this project, the permanent fencing around the school and health hut will be new addition to my community, but the idea and enthusiasm towards a garden in these areas for better nutrition throughout the community is not a new concept. In fact, this project in essence began four years ago with the previous volunteer in my village, Kirsten Bloomberg. While she was a health volunteer living in Fode Bayo, she worked with our women’s group, health hut group, and counterpart to bring the six villages that feed into Fode Bayo’s school and use our health hut together through being involved in the gardens. This task, as anyone who has worked with groups from different villages in Senegal will understand, is a monumental one in-and-of itself. As the gardens began to come alive, she was just able to get Aide et Action to fund bamboo fencing for the school garden and held a village contest to put up bamboo krinting around the health hut before she COSed. While these enclosures kept the gardens running for a time, bamboo is not sufficient to withstand the intense rains of Kolda, and the gardens were all to quickly unprotected and overrun by weeds and animals. After six villages put so much effort into the two garden plots, seeing it all crumble so quickly was disheartening and many people returned to their personal gardens.
When I moved into Fode Bayo and traveled throughout my village and the surrounding communities, I began to realize that the interest in maintaining these community plots never altogether disappeared. When the communities saw that I was serious in helping them see these gardens work again, they sprung to action (as described in my response to question three). This, in my opinion, is indicative of a commitment to sustain and continue work in the gardens, especially as they gain new gardening skills and understand the value of the plots planned for these gardens (moringa and permaculture). I am excited for what the future of these gardens may hold, considering also that my replacement will be an agriculture volunteer – hopefully one that will be able to work with community leaders to take the ideas of permaculture and the three key aspects of food security (described in my response to question one) to new levels.
Though the school and health hut gardens will primarily be used to enhance school lunches and provide nutrition trainings and moringa leaves for patrons of the health hut, there remains a possibility of income generation. Since both plots will cover a total of 2138 square meters, there will be excess land to rent out to individual gardeners. Money from the rented garden plots can not only be used to buy seeds for the gardens, but also to fund any repairs in the fencing. In addition, the women’s group and health hut group will be able to sell vegetables sold from rented plots to increase the incomes to their respective groups.
Environmental Assessment:
1) What are potential negative environmental impacts on the project activities?
Being that the space in where the permanent fencing will be constructed previously contained bamboo fencing and a garden, the negative environmental impact from this project will be minimal, if any at all.
All things considered, there are two possible negative environmental impacts concerning water: (1) that such a dramatic increase in water usage from the wells near the school garden and in the health hut will lower the water table in the area, and (2) that due to changes in the soil slope as the fencing is installed, water may collect in the areas dug up for the fence supports and doors. Apart from effects on water, it is possible that community members may see grilage fencing as a “fix-all,” or the only way in which they can securely enclose their gardens.
2) For each of the impacts described above, please describe the measures the community will adopt in order to monitor and mitigate against potentially harmful effects.
In order to monitor and mitigate the potential negative impact the permanent fencing will have on the garden areas’ water table and flow, community members will be trained extensively on the innovative and sustainable princliples of permaculture. Permaculture methods (used to create permagardens), in essence turn gardens into mini, self-sustainable ecosystems. Permagardening practices take a holistic view to gardening; community members will be trained to consider sun travel, animals on site, different plant and vegetable varieties, weather, and space utilization to achieve the maximum benefit and yield of a garden space. In mitigating the potential impact that the fence may have on water in the garden area, permagardening also considers the natural water flow in the garden area in order to manipulate water (by micro-irrigation, burms etc.) to the benefit of the garden.
Mitigating the belief that grilage fencing is the best option for enclosing garden areas will be more challenging, and will be a battle-of-beliefs fought by the future agriculture PCV in Fode Bayo. Grilage fencing is not sustainable, as metal eventually rusts and cement inevitably crumbles. Since out-right telling community members that they are wrong in thinking that grilage is the end-all-be-all of garden enclosures, we will team up with local agrofrorestry and live-fencing experts in order to plant the optimum varieties of live-fencing and wind-breaks around the gardens. These areas will then serve as demo plots that will be used to teach community members about other, more sustainable options they can use instead of grilage.
