Buzz Gambia has signed on Wednesday a water project (borehole) worth more than D400, 000 meant for Sukuta women gardeners to improve water supply and boost their production and yields.
The organization has also donated farm inputs to the two other women groups in Fass Chabai and Gunjur to enhance food self-sufficiency amid this year’s rainy season.
The inputs include 4 bags of rice seeds, 10 bags of Urea and 24 bags of NPK fertilizer, cassava sticks, and potato vine, Cow pea amongst others.
The signing of the water project and donation of the farm inputs form the third phase of the organization’s Coronavirus Emergency Support amid the outbreak.
The National Coordinator, Buzz Gambia, Fatou Cham said their intervention was necessitated by the outbreak of Coronavirus pandemic that has a direct impact on production.
“…we had a series of discussions with our partners and sponsors mainly in the Netherlands. Then we say what we do with these women because we’ve worked with them. We’ve trained them and we know their economic situations,” she said.
According to her, many of their trained women are into micro businesses which were hit hard by the pandemic.
“Then we said we needed to give immediate support and that’s when we invested in rice and soap, looking at the food and hygiene. And that’s part of the care component of our training module.”
She said the initiative is a project specifically designed to train and support women gardeners as part of their long and short-term objectives.
“Then we said, we’re going to put the funds into two aspects – one, we look at long term investment to create a sustainable impact. So, we have this community that we went to called Fass Chabai.”
Fatou said Sukuta garden is also a ground providing livelihoods to women, including those they have trained on profits management. The 15-hectare garden is not without challenges particularly access to water to moist their crops. The organization therefore assisted them with a six-inch borehole after signing a project at the tune of more than D400, 000.
Tom Senghore, National Agriculture Research Institute (NARI), Horticulture Unit official, said agriculture goes with enough water and seedlings describing Buzz Gambia’s intervention as timely.
“This is very good and a step in the right direction. They are doing this to support the women for them to be able to at least sustain themselves when it comes to development, because if you have garden and water, you can work and earn for yourself.”
He acknowledged that the Fass Chabai community is also supported with fence and planting materials.
One of the representatives of the beneficiaries of Buzz Gambia training, Fatou Gai, from Fass Chabai who’s also the anchor woman (Dimbaa Nyima) applauds the organization for its timely intervention by supporting them with farm farms and also with the training they had.
“We are happy. They came there (Fass Chabai Village) and taught us something we didn’t know before. They taught us how to grow in our business. They also helped us with a garden. We’re happy. [I am] just thanking God because we didn’t have this before”.
Buzz Gambia is a not-for-profit Non-Governmental Organization established in 2018 with the mandate to provide financial, entrepreneurial and leadership training for low income women to help them combat poverty. Its headquarters is in The Netherlands.