By Seydou Traore | Project Leader
We can’t help ourselves without your help!
In the past weeks, the Community Building Group (CBG) visited the village of Kanibou to discuss with the women about the project's short and long-term goals, and implementation steps. The women were very excited about a new solar power irrigation system that could bring a transformative life change in their livelihood. According to them, this solar power irrigation system will be the first in their village.
In terms of the overall goal, the project is aiming to empower women's productive capacity to grow more vegetable crops toward two solar power irrigation systems. Energy and have been the most important resources lacking for this community. The newly solar power irrigation system will have the following features:
We are now at the design phase and the team is diligently working with the beneficiaries for their inputs, and contribution to collect more field data. During the field visit, the CBG team have also discussed with the women about the security issues, solar power irrigation system, irrigation management, use of pesticide and herbicides, and compliance with Burkina Faso environmental code.
Irrigation at a small scale for vegetable production is one of the main activities for women in a rural area when the water resource is available. However, their production system is still obsolete, and they can hardly sustain their livelihood, as they fetch from a deep well and manually carry it to their garden.
According to Fati the president of the women cooperative group, “the problem is that we can’t help ourselves without your help, because we don’t know anything about the modern irrigation system, we have never had a solar power irrigation system, but we have heard about it. Nobody here in the village can help us to get one, and it cost money too. Therefore, having CBG coming here on many occasions to help us installing this type of system will be beneficial to us. We are planning to grow tomato, cabbage, opinion, hibiscus leaf, and lettuce. “
In previous projects, CBG found that a participative focus discussion with the beneficiaries is a crucial step to get them involve, understand the ultimate goal alongside the sustainability challenges. We have already started working with communities in Kabinou. They are involved in the entire process from the beginning of the construction to the end. In addition, they will be trained on how-to operate and maintain the solar power irrigation system.
With no knowledge of irrigation technologies, they cannot help themselves without external resources in terms of technologies and funding. That is where CBG comes into play for raising funds to help those in need in rural Africa. The irrigation system with solar energy in Kabinou will create income and directly impact women and girls for their livelihood and economic development.
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