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Growing food is not easy in arid Niger.
But it’s not impossible. RAIN has
helped nomadic communities plant gardens near their schools. Enrollments
in residential schools with gardens are up 50 to 100 percent because
parents no longer worry whether their children will be fed while
they are away tending to the herds.
The nomadic people live in the driest part
of Niger, the north. it rains -- sparsely -- only three months of
the year, and not at all the rest of the time. Recent severe droughts
may well be evidence of permanent increased aridity .
So RAIN provides drip irrigation systems, along with other materials
for the school market gardens. The parents dig the wells and hire
a gardener whom RAIN instructs in organic agriculture techniques.
With business training from RAIN, a community-elected committee of
volunteers oversees each garden. The extra crops are sold, generating
funds to make the gardens sustainable.
“RAIN
gave us this garden; we are not going to let it fail."
- Alhassane, Gougaram School Garden committee
chairperson
We do not have much time, but there may be enough
to make a real difference to those at risk if we start today…There
will be rising levels of drought and the spread of deserts such
as the Sahara...” - UN Environment
Programme report on global warming, 1/27/01
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