Happy belated new year!

Ashley and I have been working our butts off these past few weeks. With the new year comes the beginning of our first large-scale projects.

Mine is a women’s economic empowerment and food security based project in conjunction with the local women’s association. Our village has four large community gardens that grows a variety of produce from Jan to June each year. When the weather becomes inhospitable in mid-June, it becomes much harder to find fresh food in our village. Throughout North and West Africa this time is referred to as the hungry season. My project is to construct four onion preservation houses. The women will be able to store a percentage of their onion crops well in to the hunger season. They can then sell the onions at twice the price they would have during the growing season, as well as have a source of vitamin rich onions with which they may feed their families.

Ashley’s project is also food security related, but with more of an emphasis on health. She works primarily with the children’s clinic and maternity in the village and has secured a plot of land next to the clinic for a Moringa food bank. Moringa is a small tree that can be pruned into a shrub. The leaves hold an amazing array of vitamins, amino acids and minerals. One spoon full of leaf powder with each meal provides 42% of a young child’s protein requirements, 125% of their calcium, 71% of their iron and nearly 300% of their Vitamin A. Its also a great source of other vitamins and minerals.

We have 50 trees growing in the plot that should be ready for its first harvest in May; at which time Ashley will be teaching the staff to include the powder in the porridge they provide to malnourished children. In the coming month we are hoping to plant another 500 trees throughout the village, primarily in the four women’s gardens, but also in and near to compounds.

In addition to our village-based projects, I have begun working on an updated manual for Moringa growing in West Africa. The manual will be used to teach future Peace Corps volunteers the best practices of Moringa planting and care. This will be accompanied by a graphic manual in both French and Bambara for the local population to use. Ashley is spearheading the latter.

Below is a graphic representation of what the completed onion storage houses will look like: