Water Basins for 8,000 Villages using Solar Power

Community Building Group (CBG) is empowering women with solar power drip and sprinkler irrigation systems.

Women empowerment project throughout new solar power irrigation systems has increased vegetable productions in the villages of Kamsi, Kougny, and Djomga located in the Centre-West, Mouhoun and Sahel regions of Burkina Faso, respectively. The regional team from Community Building Group in Ouagadougou, capital of Burkina Faso has conducted a series of field monitoring and provide technical support to the project beneficiaries. Last month, the team has discussed with the project beneficiaries and trained them on the coming dry season production planning.

Elisabeth, the president of the group tells us about their ongoing work and the direct impacts of the project on their daily life. She said: "Right now we are really busy in the irrigation garden because we need to take care of the vegetable nursery which should be ready for re-planting in the coming weeks. This year, the goal is to do three or four harvests, with the first harvest being planned for the end of October for the green-leaf sorrel. Sorrel is a direct seedling, it grows fast if we irrigate, and we make sauces or sell in the market. Donors of this project have done something meaningful; we are very blessed with this project. The other thing we thank Community Building Group is the solar power irrigation system management because, in addition to providing us the all the equipment, they trained us how to operate well the solar system, and how to manage the irrigation water. We have three soil moistures sensors that are manually reading, so we learned how to interpret the color changes displayed in the LCD which changed from blue to green or red. It tells us whether the water in the soil is depleted or not, so we start applying water. Before we got the sensors, we just turn on the irrigation every single day, as it is solar, nobody worries. But now it is different, we manage the water efficiently and we can growth three (3) to four (4) times per campaign, therefore it increases our production capacity, especially in the dry season. The more we produce, the more we become financially autonomous in our homes. "

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We grow vegetables in the dry season, and corn in the rainy season.

Last week, on July 8-9, 2019, Community Building Group team of the regional office (CBG-WA) based in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso have visited the Women's Community Garden in the villages of Djomga and Kamsi. In general, the women reported that, with the current rainy season, they are growing mainly corn. But, according to them, after the rainy season, i.e. by the end of the coming month (August), they will start growing vegetable crops in the dry season.

CBG team have interviewed Elizabeth, who is a representative of the women group. "She said that for the past season, we were able to do three growing cycles, and this was dependent on the type of crops, as some crops have a long production cycle, and others like lettuce and hibiscus plants have short cycles. The varieties of lettuce we cultivate can take between 45 to 55 days. Which mean we can harvest the lettuce 45 days after planting. We have no worry about pumping water, as we use solar power energy to operate the irrigation farm. Since we got the solar power irrigation system, everything works well, the maintenance is easy, we only have to clean the solar panel to remove dust as needed. We start watering from 8: am when the sun starts rising until 3 to 4 pm. With the new soil moisture monitoring device that we received from Community Building Group, we do now irrigation based on the reading monitor of the level of soil moisture. They teach us how to read the soil mositure device. Our challenges are now to protect the irrigation farm with fence to prevent animals like cattle and goats coming in at night time. We encountered several damages in the past. But, even that we still have hope, and we are very blessed to have this irrigation system here, as well as the rainwater catchment basin. And without the basin, we can’t even have water here for our life."

For Salio, a member of the women group said that they usually growth tomatoes, onion, and green pepper under irrigation, and this has been very helpful to our respective family. Before the basin, we have to go far away with our kids to get water. Now with the basin in the village, everyone feels happy. Before, our children couldn’t even do anything at night time. Because in the day time, they need to help us fetching for water, that makes them very tired once we get back home, and with such burden, they don’t frequently go to school, even think about it.

 Community Building Group stays focus on addressing water and energy challenges in the Sahel Region. Your generous contribution can make a huge difference and improve life. Stay tuned, and more yet to come!

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