Helping our Azawak communities fill empty bellies

With a cereal bank started in Couloubade, this mother will have grain to feed her child.

Since last year, people in Ebagueye have had a steady supply of grain at an affordable price through their cereal bank.

Dear Friends of the Azawak,

We are so grateful to the many of you who responded to our last update. We received generous donations, several tweets, likes, and shares on social media, and numerous messages of encouragement. Thank you for being an ongoing inspiration!

Solidarity Challenge!

I want to invite you to participate in our second Solidarity Challenge Campaign, that begins on October 27th and continues through the month of November. Do something fun to raise awareness and or funds, and directly help save and improve the lives of our friends in Niger. Stay tuned for details!

Cereal Banks to Relieve Hunger

Hunger is a primary cause of sickness and desperation faced by the children and the families that we help. Initally, and perhaps naively, we thought that if they had water, they would be able to feed themselves. While this is not entirely untrue, we underestimated the sheer poverty of our communities. Water is not yet enough to combat the unremitting lack of access to food.

This reality hit me hard when I heard that “our” children were going days without eating. Our women were desperate. Persistent drought throughout the Western Sahara sub region meant that millet and rice prices have soared at four times their normal price. Our people might have water to drink and to grow small gardens at different times of the year, but this is not yet enough to feed them enough on a continual and reliable basis.

Thanks to the cereal bank we built last year in Ebagueye, we saw promising results for combatting malnutrition and hunger in the community. Even nurses in Abalak have noted that children from Ebagueye are healther in general than children from other villages thanks to their clean water and access to enough food.

Wanting to replicate our Ebagueye results, we built cereal banks for the communities of Tangarwashane and Couloubade. Like the Ebagueye cereal bank, these banks are managed by a woman-run management committee. The committee sells the grain -- which we have provided -- for a much cheaper price than it is found on the market. The profits are used to pay the bank manager a small stipend, and to purchase additional grain. So even though it’s always a challenge for our populations to pay for food, at least in these communities they can rely on a steady supply of affordable grain. We are thrilled to see that past empty bellies are being filled and that our children are growing thanks to proper nourishment!

Thank you for continuing to support our work with your contributions, social network sharing, and overall feedback.

Sincerely yours, 

Ariane

Alhassan and Sadouan from Tangarwashane are relieved to have 

affordable millet to feed their children.