Yesterday, I headed out into rural North South Sudan (Northern Bahr el Ghazal). After driving for hours on and off dirt tracks that would challenge any cartographer or four-wheel driver, through numerous informal checkpoints and communities constituted of a couple dozen mud brick/thatch houses and a few cows, we turned a corner to find a mob of people brandishing gardening tools blocking the road. One of my colleagues suggested we should slow, only to be told by our driver (laughing) that this was our welcoming committee.
I was instructed to get out of the vehicle and walk to meet the menacing crowd, some wearing Australian Aid and World Vision branded shirts, all singing and dancing, some waving sticks and others sharp looking hoes and green plastic watering cans as they advanced towards and then around me. Every now and then, in amongst the Dinka singing I heard the words “World Vision” while together we danced and sang our way down the track to a demonstration garden and the community gathering tree.
This community is one of seven sites in this region where World Vision, with local government and DFAT funding is working to improve food security and livelihoods through the provision of gardening and fishing kits. Over the past few years World Vision Australia has used funds donated by Australians to support World Food Program (WFP) projects in the region. These have provided short-term food interventions, but this Australian Humanitarian Partnership Famine Response (AHP) project complements the WFP work and builds sustainability by teaching women and men new agriculture techniques and introducing seven new crops that have been chosen to improve nutrition and diversify the existing (inadequate) crops.
Among the women who welcomed me today were two women with a disability; one with congenital blindness and the other an amputated arm as a result of the war for independence that caused most of the people in this area, close to the Sudanese border, to flee. But now, back home, these two women are amongst the group of 20 women Lead Farmers who have been trained to design gardens and grow crops – and to teach their communities to do the same in home gardens.
One of the women tells me that when she was chosen by her community to be one of the people involved in the project she was nervous, afraid of leaving home, but the day she received her gardening kit, which included seeds for the seven different crops, was “the happiest day of [my] life”. As a result of her involvement in the project she says: “I have bought myself shoes; my daughter is at school instead of at home; and my husband and I are not fighting anymore – we work together on our own garden at home. My garden gives me hope for my little girl”.
The funding for this project will finish at the end of this year, but by that time World Vision, with our partners, will have worked with about 2,000 households (about 12,000 children, women and men) to improve their food security and livelihoods – and provide hope for an improved future.
