Tag Archives: Sierra Leone

From the Field: Education Multiplies Hope

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This weekly post shines a light on a handful of stories from Heifer.org’s “From the Field”From the Field section.

Heifer International’s Training and Education Cornerstone is the first stop on every participant’s journey to Passing on the Gift®. Education makes the achievement of self-reliance and sustainable livelihoods possible and gives project participants the tools to multiply justice and hope worldwide.

The Port Loko district of Sierra Leone suffers from seasonal bush fires, which consume fruit trees, cause water shortages and reduce crop yields. Heifer International is working with Kids Arise, a local non-governmental drama organization, to educate communities on the dangers of bush fires and preventative measures. Through drama and song, Kids Arise has helped decrease deforestation.

Kids Arise

Kids Arise, a drama group from Sierra Leone, educates communities about deforestation and preventative measures. Photo by Valesius Koker

Renuka Begum, a 40-year-old wife and mother, did not receive a childhood education due to extreme poverty. After participating in trainings on Heifer’s 12 Cornerstones for Just and Sustainable Development, gender and justice and improved animal management, she began applying her education to improve her family’s livelihood. Her daughter’s education is now secure and Renuka is diligent in sharing, caring and participating in self-help group (SHG) activities.

Giving out recipes with her haricot bean sales gave Shushan's business an innovative approach. Photo by Anna Arakelyan

Giving out recipes with her haricot bean sales gave Shushan’s business an innovative approach. Photo by Anna Arakelyan

Sixteen-year-old Shushan Khachatryan of Armenia presented a business plan and received a $100 grant to start her business through Heifer Armenia’s Young Agriculturists Network of Armenia (YANOA) project. She selected a business plan by applying what she had learned through YANOA, which increased her haricot bean sales. “When I was developing my business plan I took into account many details,” Shushan said. “Yet, in my simple business idea I invested an innovative approach. I decided to provide recipes of dishes prepared from haricots to all the customers who would buy haricots from me.”

 

Learn how you can multiply justice and hope worldwide

900 Refugees Once Camped Here: Photo of the Week

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Photo by Geoff Bugbee, courtesy of Heifer International
In Port Loko, Sierra Leone, Marie Kabba (52), a widow and member of the Kamuyu Women’s Development Organization gardening collective walks through a row of lush Chinese beans that climb and weave through trellised bamboo poles. What used to be a refugee camp for 900 displaced people from surrounding villages is now a vibrant parcel of arable land.

Heifer Works in 8 out of 10 Countries Most At Risk To Climate Change

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Heifer participant in Sierra Leone.

Haiti, Bangladesh, Zimbabwe, Sierra Leone, Madagascar, Cambodia, Mozambique, Democratic Republic of Congo, Malawi and the Philippines. According to a report by the British risk analysis firm, Maplecroft, these 10 countries are at the most extreme risk for impacts caused by climate change.

According to a post on EarthSky:

Maplecroft analyzed the vulnerability of 193 countries to climate change impacts. They first evaluated the degree to which countries will be exposed to extreme weather events and other climate-related natural disasters. Next, the company assessed the ability of countries to cope with climate change impacts by evaluating factors such as governmental effectiveness, infrastructure capacity and the availability of natural resources.

The report makes it clear that it is mostly the poorest sections of society that will bear the brunt of climate change impacts. 

Of the 10 countries listed, Heifer works in all but two (Madagascar and DRC). Improving communities’ resilience to climate change and disaster is integrated into many of our projects, particularly those in high risk areas. Last month I posted about a project of ours in the Philippines that was in the midst of Community-Managed Disaster Risk Reduction training when torrential rains caused damaging floods, further stressing the importance of the training.

By working with small farmers to find the most environmentally sensitive and beneficial approaches to agriculture, we are doing our part to curb climate change while reducing the risks faced by our project communities. In fact, Heifer International’s East Africa Dairy Development Initiative was mentioned in a report titled “Achieving Food Security in the Face of Climate Change” as an example of how programs can address food security in the context of climate change.

If you’re interested in funding work in a country from this top-10 high-risk list, check out the Integrated Livestock Development Project in Sierra Leone, which focuses on a region of Sierra Leone facing rapid population growth, a high incidence of communicable diseases, and increased pressure on natural resources and physical infrastructure. By providing participants with opportunities to build livelihoods using sustainable farming practices, this project will strengthen the communities and the environment at the same time.

Trainer of Trainers Teaches Us

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You might not guess it when you first meet him, but Mahmoud Conteh is a highly educated agronomist who teaches others how to improve their crop yields the sustainable way. In truth, Mahmoud grew up desperately poor and under-educated in the Port Loko District of Sierra Leone, like the vast majority of his countrymen. But he had the good fortune to join a Heifer International self help group that partners with the non-profit Mercy Ships.
While anchored near Freetown, Mercy Ships personnel, working with Heifer Sierra Leone staff, trained Mahmoud and others in sustainable farming techniques. Working with animals supplied by Heifer and local seeds and soils, Mahmoud and his group have abandoned the traditional slash-and-burn farming techniques that deplete soils, and adopted sustainable methods that restore nutrients to the soil and vastly improve the yields from their crops.
Listen as he teaches us why composting is better than fertilizer.

Why Work Local

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Chief Musa didn’t like animals messing up his village. “They compete with the farmers for their crops, they mess up the village. I don’t want them here.”

But that was before he met Rashid Sesay, Country Director for Heifer International in Sierra Leone. Rashid explained how Heifer emphasizes zero grazing, where animals inhabit pens that are safe, well ventilated and beneficial for the animals. Farmers bring fresh, nutritious food and water to the animals, and still allow them to get plenty of exercise outside the pen (without running rampant over Chief Musa’s nice, clean village).

Six months after goats were placed in Siama village, Rashid visited Chief Musa again. He found that the chief himself had been converted and kept goats of his own—in pens, of course. “I trust you; you are my best friend now,” the chief told Rashid.

It’s a simple thing, really, but this illustration demonstrates a much larger and more complex concept: working locally. Heifer realizes that it’s important to get the buy-in of a community before we go to work. In fact, we only go where we’re invited. And we insist that the communities themselves set goals and procedures. From there, we help the communities facilitate development themselves (there are a whole lot more of them than there are of us, after all).

And that’s really one of the great beauties of the Heifer model; we don’t just drop off a bag of rice or a few goats and leave a community to fend for itself. We give communities the training and the tools to bring themselves up out of poverty. We don’t just ask communities what they think; we involve them and make them part of the process—and the solution. The result is that people take ownership and pride in what they’re doing, and are able finally to feed themselves and restore their own human dignity.

Just ask Chief Musa.

Bill Fitzgerald is Heifer International’s creative director. You can read his previous posts about project visits in Sierra Leone here. 


Heifer: After The War

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Heifer International country director Rashid Sesay shares his vision for the organization’s work in Sierra Leone

by Bill Fitzgerald

If you’re reading this now, that phrase is probably at least mildly familiar. World War II… The Korean War… The Vietnam War… The Civil War in Sierra Leone.

We’re not a relief agency: those valiant folks go in often while the bullets are still flying, or the storm tide is receding, God bless ‘em. Heifer focuses on what comes after… how do people who are devastated by war, or just born into devastating circumstances, rebuild—or build—lives where they have enough food, can send their kids to school, pay for needed medicines or improve their living conditions?

Over the years, that focus has taken us into Poland, Germany, Russia, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia… and lately, Sierra Leone. The Civil War in Sierra Leone (1991-2000) was brutal, possibly more so because it wasn’t born in Sierra Leone but in neighboring Liberia, and imported by the rebels of General Charles Taylor, now on trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Even before the war, Sierra Leone was a poor country. Today, 70% of its population lives in poverty; it’s ranked in the bottom five on the UN’s Human Development Index.; the average annual income is about $750; 2/3 of the adult population are illiterate. And the civil war did this beautiful country no favors: 50,000 were killed; almost the same number were maimed, usually by the rebels’ trademark of having hands or feet hacked off; staple crop production dropped 70%; and 90% of all livestock were killed or taken away.

A small ray of light entered the country three years ago when Heifer International’s Sierra Leone country office opened under the direction of Rashid Sesay, a native (country directors are always natives in the country where they work). Heifer’s work fit in perfectly with the government’s Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper; agricultural development and food security are key foundations for economic growth and poverty reduction. And as it is with the Heifer model, the government has targeted smallholder farmers to provide better access to markets and processing facilities.

To fully understand the situation in Sierra Leone today, imagine if U.S. farmers had been forced to flee the countryside and settle in cities. Imagine everything you buy at the grocery store had to be imported from another country. Imagine there were no livestock. Imagine only 8% of the roads were paved. Imagine there were people from neighboring countries taking refuge and placing extra strain on the faltering infrastructure. Imagine tens of thousands of women in your area who had been raped by an invading force and who now had to support themselves and the children they’d borne, the “living scar.”

But then, imagine you came across this idea of sharing and caring. Of treating women with respect and dignity. Of providing for those in genuine need. Of justice. Even, of passing on the gift. Then, things start to change.

And the change is working. Starting in Kailahun District in the east, the first area affected by the civil war and the last area to be disarmed, Heifer Sierra Leone now works with some 5,000 families in four projects around the country. It’s a humble start, but Rashid Sesay has a vision of doing great things. “My vision is that Heifer Sierra Leone will go to every part of the country and have more capacity to target more families.”

Bill Fitzgerald is Heifer International’s creative director. You can read his previous posts about project visits in Sierra Leone here. 

The Making of a Successful Proposal (We Hope)

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Heifer Sierra Leone Country Director Rashid Sesay, Joseph Buckle, Roland Suluku, Foday Koroma (of Njala University), Heifer Senior Project Officer Val Koker and volunteer Dr. Luciano Gajutos hammer out the details (not pictured, West Africa Regional Director Elizabeth Bintliff).

At a long table in Heifer Sierra Leone’s headquarters, six men and one woman debate and discuss poultry mortality rates, the price for a bag of chicken manure (to be used as fertilizer), whether and how smallholder farmers can get high-quality feed, the cost of construction for housing chickens, coordination of farming schedules, veterinary care and access to medicines, marketing and far more details than I can get into here.

The occasion is a two-day “write shop” to develop and polish a $1.6 million proposal to the European Union for a project that would reduce food insecurity and increase resiliency among 5,000 vulnerable rural households in Kailahun and Koinadugu Districts of Sierra Leone. The project would target families with pregnant women or lactating mothers. Participants in the write shop include poultry experts from Njala University, a volunteer veterinarian, Heifer’s Senior Project Officer, Country Director and West Africa Area Director.

Heifer International doesn’t work extensively with poultry in Africa, but there is a great need and market for fresh eggs here. Besides addressing the immediate need, this project will also focus on sustainability by training trainers in the target populations. These women will provide technical training to subsequent families so that they may keep the program going and ultimately raise the income and nutrition levels of more families.

The proposal is due August 25, so keep your fingers crossed.

The Business of Preserving the Savanna

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Heifer project participants plant cashew seedlings
Photos, video and story by Bill Fitzgerald
 
The business of burning wood to produce charcoal has been linked to support of Al Shabbab in the Horn of Africa. While Heifer is not addressing terrorism in Sierra Leone, we are addressing desertification and soil depletion.

The vast swaths of savanna outside Freetown are subject to annual burning during “the dries” of March and April. A single spark or careless match and a fire erupts that lasts for days and threatens villages like Robombeh. There, the Sabenti Women’s Farmers Association is working to establish cashew plantations that will provide long-term income and make the savanna less susceptible to fire, since taller, mature trees are typically above and safe from the flames. Farmers around Robombeh have traditionally harvested any available wood to burn under piles of earth to make high quality charcoal. The charcoal is bagged and sold as fuel for stoves in Freetown and elsewhere in Sierra Leone.

Fire is a danger in Koinadugu District also, where I was yesterday, but that heavily forested and hilly region suffers from traditional “slash and burn” agriculture, rather than the charcoal trade. Heifer is working there to train farmers in integrated agriculture that will replenish, rather than deplete the soil.

In the video below, Heifer Senior Project Officer Val Koker talks about the Sabenti Women’s Farmers Association.

Bill Fitzgerald is Heifer International’s creative director. You can read his previous posts about project visits in Sierra Leone here. 

A wood pile smolders as it’s burned into charcoal

Bagged charcoal ready for sale

Cashew seedling planted by a Heifer-sponsored group

A mature cashew tree

You Can’t Lift a Rock With Just One Finger

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by Bill Fitzgerald
“You can’t lift a rock with just one finger.”
Those words were from an unschooled community leader of the Landaya Women Farmers Association in Koromasilaya Community in the Koinadugu District of Sierra Leone. They came after we were welcomed with singing and dancing, and before we were sent off with handshakes and hugs…and more singing and dancing.

This group, along with two others, has only been in existence for about six months, yet they already know the 12 Cornerstones better than most. The groups were from different villages, spoke different dialects and did not know each other before bonding together to learn how to feed their families better the Heifer way. Yet, through learning the 12 Cornerstones that Heifer teaches all project participants, they came together to realize that they could do much more, much better, if they worked together. A single finger can’t pick up a rock, but 10 (or 12) can, easily.

Malnutrition among the group’s children was visible. Their usually jet-black hair was discolored brownish-yellow and their bellies were distended. But they waited patiently as the women and men gave their reports and then took us on a tour of the still-under-construction goat sheds. The groups have been training for months now, and our trip missed the arrival of their healthy new Heifer goats by just one week. I can only imagine the singing and dancing and clapping at that gathering.


Bill Fitzgerald is Heifer International’s creative director. You can read his previous posts about project visits in Sierra Leone here.

Sierra Leone: First Impressions

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The weather always seems to affect the way I see locales. Our flight into Conakry, Guinea, was delayed about an hour as our big Air France jet from Paris circled, waiting for the rains to lift. The short (30 minutes) flight from Conakry to Freetown was uneventful, and the remains of the rain storm lay in puddles on the ground in Freetown when we arrived. While Elizabeth Bintliff, Heifer’s West Africa Area Director, commented on how much the airport had improved in the year since she had vsited, I thought it looked as if building or renovation had been started, then abandoned a decade ago. The gleaming new control tower stood in sharp contrast to the unfinished terminal buildings, with their rickety scaffolding and ripped blue tarps clinging to the unfinished concrete work, and all under scudding gray clouds.
Across the street from the airport, a shantytown of rundown shops and homes teemed with hundreds of people milling about, clearly with no place else to be or go. The drive to the hovercraft port from the airport couldn’t have been more than a mile and a half, but took some 20 minutes, as the driver gingerly negotiated the pock-marked road, avoiding the largest mud puddles left by the rain. The beach where the hovercraft “parked” would have been beautiful, had it not been for the ramshackle stick huts, and slapped-together dwellings where people lived without electricity or running water.
After a relatively smooth 30 minute ride on the hovercraft, we arrived at our final destination and home base for the next week or so: Freetown, Sierra Leone. It’s situated on the shoulder of a gently sloping mountain that angles down to the Atlantic Ocean. We had a brief welcome visit from the country director, Rashid Sesay and talked over plans for tomorrow: leave the hotel at 6 am and drive 5 hours to see projects in the field. Since we’ve been up for something like 36 hours now, I’ll end this post and hope to have more substantive observations later in the week.

Bill Fitzgerald is Heifer International’s creative director. You can read his previous posts about project visits in Sierra Leone here.