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SENEGAL / WOMEN SAHEL DROUGHT
STORY: SENEGAL / WOMEN SAHEL DROUHT
TRT: 3:10
SOURCE: FAO
RESTRICTION: NONE
LANGUAGE: WOLOF / NATS
DATELINE: JULY 2018, KEUR BARA TAMBÉDOU, SENEGAL
1. Wide shot, Guilé Mané and women selling vegetables at the local market of the village
2. SOUNDBITE (Wolof) Guilé Mané, Farmer:
“The vegetables we used to buy in the market were rotting after two days. They also contained chemicals.”
3. Wide shot, Guilé Mané passing vegetable to a woman
4. Close up, Okra being poured into a bucket
5. Wide shot, women getting water from cistern
6. Wide shot, women walking with water buckets on their heads to go watering the garden
7. Various shots, plant
8. Various shots, women working in garden
9. Wide shot, tracking shot of dry landscape
10. Various shots, woman working on a dry land
11. SOUNDBITE ( Wolof ) Guilé Mané, Farmer:
“The children had diarrhea because of the bad food they ate.”
12. Wide shot, a woman picking okra in a bucket
13. SOUNDBITE ( Wolof ) Guilé Mané, Farmer:
“There were women who could not even take care of their children when they fell ill.”
14. Wide shot, women with their children walking in a field
15. Various shots, women taking water out of cistern
16. Med shot, man working at cistern
17. Wide shot, women working in garden
18. Close up, Guilé Mané
19. SOUNDBITE ( Wolof ) Guilé Mané, Farmer:
“We started farming during the dry season barely two years ago.”
20. SOUNDBITE ( Wolof ) Guilé Mané, farmer:
“The cistern is very useful for us. All we earned before the construction of this cistern was used to pay water bills. Since we have the cistern, we water the field abundantly without paying any bills.”
21. Various shots, Guilé Mané and other women gardening
22. SOUNDBITE ( Wolof ) Guilé Mané, Farmer:
“FAO partners came to train us in how to maintain a field. Now we can do everything by ourselves. We have a lot of benefits from the garden.”
23. SOUNDBITE ( Wolof ) Guilé Mané, Farmer:
“The money we earn from selling vegetables we now put in a fund. That is why we want to grow more food, because we have enough water and can earn more.”
24. Various shots, Guilé Mané talking to women from association
25. Various shots, nutritious seed bin
26. Various shots, women working at the garden
The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)’s new water-gathering and storage systems help rural communities, especially women farmers to combatting drought in Senegal.
Like many farmers in Senegal, Guilé Mané used to struggle through the dry season. Rainfall here can be very low and irregular, even in the rainy season.
Guilé is 39 years old. She heads a farmers’ association called Diapo Ande Liggeye (United to Work) in her home area of Keur Bara Tambédou.
SOUNDBITE (Wolof) Guilé Mané, Farmer:
“The vegetables we used to buy in the market were rotting after two days. They also contained chemicals.”
The lack of water meant crop and food shortages, more frequent illnesses, and insufficient income from the sale of whatever the farmers managed to grow.
SOUNDBITE ( Wolof ) Guilé Mané, Farmer:
“The children had diarrhea because of the bad food they ate.”
SOUNDBITE ( Wolof ) Guilé Mané, Farmer:
“There were women who could not even take care of their children when they fell ill.”
Guilé and the other women had to walk long distances to reach sources of clean water and use part of their income to pay for it.
Now, Guile’ says, her life has changed because of a new water-gathering and storage system put in place through FAO’s “1 million cisterns for the Sahel” programme, which focuses on vulnerable rural communities in arid and semi-arid regions of five countries affected by climate shocks.
SOUNDBITE ( Wolof ) Guilé Mané, Farmer:
“The cistern is very useful for us. All we earned before the construction of this cistern was used to pay water bills. Since we have the cistern, we water the field abundantly without paying any bills.”
SOUNDBITE ( Wolof ) Guilé Mané, Farmer:
“FAO partners came to train us in how to maintain a field. Now we can do everything by ourselves. We have a lot of benefits from the garden.”
Inspired by a similar programme implemented in Brazil through its “Fome Zero” programme, this initiative aims to give access to safe drinking water to millions of people across the Sahel. The idea is to improve families’ lives on a number of levels.
The programme helps families to increase what they grow for nutrition and for income, helps to improve health and, ultimately, builds the resilience of millions of families, especially women.
The women, their families and local masons were trained to build cisterns for year-round water storage. The cisterns hold water harvested from a collection area such as the rooftop of a hangar or shed. The beneficiaries and masons were paid for their work while the farmers received training in climate-smart agricultural practices.
Guilé says she and the other farmers have learned several new things from FAO and its partners, such as how to draw up a gardening plan, how to set up a nursery, and how to keep the soil and plants healthy.
Guilé has noticed local families are healthier, in part, because they regularly eat higher-quality food that is produced locally, year-round, using natural and sustainable techniques.
The programme has also empowered women financially. Through the farmers’ association, the women have created a fund with proceeds from their market sales. Each woman is able to withdraw money to meet household or personal expenses before paying it back at the end of the month. This also means that their children get to stay in school.
The farmers are now looking to the future by pooling their profits to extend their growing area, something that would have been unthinkable of without water.
By providing access to clean water and investing in people’s livelihoods, FAO is empowering them to take action and be a part of the global goal to achieve Zero
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