The ‘Reducing Disasters Risks, Climate Change Adaptation, Management and Restoration of Ecosystems’ Project (RRD / ACC / GRE) in the inner Niger Delta, which is funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands, has just organize an exchange visit in Bambarawel (area of Fakala in Djenne). The visit is part of the linking and learning component of the project. But moreover, it enabled member villages of the Partners program for Resilience (PfR) to benefit from the experience on course in the visited communities.
Through this exchange visit, participants from the villages of Dianweli and Simina (common Konna), Saba, Noga and Abdramane (common Dialloubé) in north-central Mali, learned about the gardening technics and dike construction experiences in the Bambarawel.
The visitors went to the dike and explored the women garden fence that were built on bare hands, over a distance of 2800 meters in 60 days to protect an area of 27 hectares.
The quality of the dike was positively appreciated by all representatives of Simina, Dianweli and Saba. These three villages are often worried about the safety of their homes because of the water flowing nearby after every rainstorm. However, the dike surrounding the villager’s vegetable garden (PIV) is sufficient to protect the village against rainwater.
The exchange visit offered also a chance to residents to acquire skills to better manage their vegetable gardens. The visitors informed them that currently in the town of Dialloubé, it is rather family and individual plots, between 30 to 40 hectares each, which are farmed and not villager’s vegetable gardens. They became more aware of the importance of these farms in such areas.
The garden is operated on a land of one hectare. It is sufficiently supplied in water by two wells. Onion and cabbage are the main crops cultivated within.
Discussions were also centered on the technical patterns to observe for some crops like onion, okra, peppers.
This exchange visit was beneficial to the participants of the PfR program village’s members in the area of Konna and Dialloubé. It enabled them to see the level of commitment of a beneficiary village of the PADIN project in strengthening their resilience to climate change impacts.
The PfR is an alliance of Wetlands International, Care Netherlands, and the Red Cross / Center for Climate and their compounds partner of National Ngos ((ODI-Sahel, GRAT, AMPRODE-Sahel).