CAPACITY BUILDING OF THE TOUAREG PEOPLE
Home to nomadic Pastoralists
The climate of the Effidaye in Niger is hot, dry and dusty. Effidaye is home to the Touareg people who are nomadic pastoralists engaged in subsistence farming. In Effidaye most families do not have access to safe clean water or sanitation and women/ girls commonly walk 4-6 kilometres to fetch water that maybe contaminated. Women and girls spend long hours each day producing millet in wooden buckets to grind down into a flour which can be cooked as a paste. The under- five child mortality rate is 263 per thousand. Nutrition and health status with high levels of malnutrition and illiteracy and access to uncontaminated water and the role of women are the consequences of acute food insecurity.
Twenty percent of the total population of pastoral areas, consisting mostly of poor households, is at less than 20% of their herd intact after a succession of losses due to herd thinning, starvation/thirst, and hypothermia/flooding. These losses, affecting transhumant as well as sedentary animals, have cut animal household income (from livestock sales) by 25 percent. Community assistance in pastoral areas involving cash loans for terminal fattening activities, the strengthening of rotation systems for breeding animals for the rebuilding of livestock herds, gifts of milk, etc., is at record levels. However, these strategies and gifts of milk are simple not generating enough food and money to fully meet basic household food needs.
Redemptorist Project Response
In the rural community of Effidaye in Niger, the Redemptorists are committed to the strengthening the food security base and capacity building of the local rural community.
During 2012, the Redemptorist project aims to strengthen the food security base of 600 Touareg families living in the rural area of Effidaye located 82.5k km west of Tchirozerine, Niger.
Specifically, the Redemptorist led project will accomplish:
- The establishment of a food cereal bank;
- The construction of two water wells( pastoral wells);
- Provision of micro-credit to Touraeg women to help fund the purchase and breeding of goats and sheep
- Capacity building and education on agricultural techniques, animal husbandry, pesticides etc.
Expected Outcome
The aim is to achieve an outcome in Effidaye where in the period just before harvest, the local women line up “to borrow” their share of cereals. Like any loan, the cereals must be repaid- but at low interest rates after the harvest. The aim is to achieve an outcome of providing 10 tonnes at 40% less than the market process and to reduce the time women spend journeying to the city to procure cereals.
Investment
The Redemptorists are investing €27,000 in this project with grants from SERVE and Misean Cara and Electric Aid helping over three thousand people.
