After Ebola, Gardens Help Rebuild Lives

Improving nutrition in a sustainable way requires having good seeds, access to training and information, and appropriate tools. Many people have the energy, ambition and are ready for the work but they do not have the resources to get started. Having access to right garden tools and supplies makes a community’s goal of nutrition improvement easily achievable, especially for SPI’s seed recipients.

Appropriate tools and equipment contribute to the broad objective of increasing the viability of the small farms and gardens supported by our partner organizations. Most smaller groups and individual seed recipients in Liberia use traditional technologies that are inefficient. Although power tools and more modern tools can be found in Liberia, most recipients and our partner organizations do not have the resources to cover the cost of these types of equipment. It is, therefore, our goal to help fill this gap with good quality tools and equipment that are affordable and suited to the scale of operations of the small farmers and gardeners.

in May 2017 11 tools banks with little or no tools at all were fully stocked with tools for SPI seed recipients across five counties in Liberia. With their new tool banks, our Liberia partners are preparing themselves to train seed recipients how to operate their new tool banks in an inclusive and efficient manner, and create a self-supporting system of sharing tools and other resources.

SPI provided the tools with support from you and from GlobalGiving and paid the cost of transport to our distribution point, which was the office of one of our partners in Liberia.

The tools funded by SPI are selected specifically with the environment and local culture in mind. These tools are:

a) adapted to allow efficient and speedy work with the minimum of fatigue

b) of simple design, so that they can be made locally;

c) light in weight, for easy transportation

d) ready for immediate use without loss of time for preparatory adjustments;

f) made of easily available materials.

Across Liberia, it’s mostly small kitchen gardens and small-scale farmers who put food on a villager’s table. It is because of the hard work of these gardeners and farmers that we have accomplished our goals. We support sustainable options for our partners, instead of pushing them into the endless cycle of buying bad seeds and chemical fertilizers and pesticides that only damage their most precious resource, their land.

When working with our in-country partners, we look at a variety of resource areas, including access to seeds,  tools, and training to determine the gaps and how to invest SPI resources to sustainably contribute to the rebuilding of communities who have survived disease and war many times over.

We are proud of our Liberia partners who are working tirelessly to make a difference in the communities they serve. Despite a variety of difficulties, they have been able to obtain and share valuable horticultural and life skills that have become life-saving for many who rely on them.

Thank you for supporting our work, and thank you to GlobalGiving for your partnership!

Seed is not a hand-out, and vegetables don’t appear by magic. The journey from seed to harvest — soil preparation, sowing, weeding, picking, and transportation — requires a significant investment from farmers. That’s a lot of time, sweat, and energy.

Just as seed is not a hand-out, the support SPI provides to our partners is not a hand-out; it’s an investment. With your help, we invest in leaders on the ground who put their communities first, cultivate mutually beneficial relationships, and put resources in the hands of those who need them most (often the same people that can do the most with them). In other words, they do the hard work of building resiliency.

The SPI Liberia Partnership Network exemplifies this type of investment. The network began with a stakeholder meeting in May 2016. During the lead-up to that meeting, we consulted with a partner on the ground who identified local connections that could contribute to, and benefit from, the network. She took the lead, inviting partners and organizing the entire event, including transportation arrangements. During the meeting itself, partners coordinated how they would educate and support each other, share resources, and build a framework that would ensure that the work of rebuilding their communities would last well beyond SPI’s involvement.

Now that the network is established, we are seeing clear progress. So far, network partners have conducted over 2,000 extension visits, 360 instructional school days, and 75 group trainings. Many of the partners in the network did not know about each other before the stakeholder meeting. Now, they’re sharing a pool of agricultural expertise from within the network. Because of their hard work and conscious collaboration, SPI’s investment of seeds and training has reached more people, families, and communities than we would have been able to reach on our own. We’re confident that this work will last beyond our involvement because the programs were made for the network, by the network.

The support that our network partners provide for Ebola survivors is crucial for their recovery and livelihoods. Many survivors are ostracized without the skills or resources they need to feed themselves or make a living. The agricultural training provided by SPI partners not only offers survivors a pathway to recovery, but creates a space for psychosocial support that assists their healing. For instance, similar to the knowledge sharing of network partners, survivors began teaching each other basic life skills they had learned before they were affected by Ebola. While the SPI Liberia Partnership Network is rebuilding the agricultural infrastructure, farmers are finding strength in one another to rebuild their social structures.

Our partners and their farmers are working together to share resources and disburse support in ways that ensure the resiliency of their communities. We are excited to be part of their work and we could not have supported them without you!