In November 2020, the new Climate Fund project of Naturefriends Senegal started with fruit tree plantations in the north of the country. Mamadou Mbodji, who coordinates the activities on site, reports from the project region:

Thanks to the generous donations for the Naturefriends Climate Fund, we can implement our project in a total of seven villages. The people there live from agriculture and suffer particularly badly from the consequences of climate change. On the one hand, periods of drought are increasing and leading to crop failures. On the other hand, extreme rainfall is becoming more frequent in the rainy season, leading to dramatic floods – as was the case last autumn – because the parched soils cannot absorb the masses of water.

The Corona pandemic poses an additional existential threat to the rural population. In addition to the immediate health risk, the already precarious economic situation is getting even worse - poverty and hunger are increasing.

This made it even more important for us to start our project and to offer new perspectives to the local population. First, our team went to the villages and talked to the people: Why do we want to plant fruit trees? What is the benefit for the population? And most importantly, how can we help the small seedlings grow into trees that will provide our families with fresh mangoes, lemons, and other fruit in the future?

In December, our project team came to the villages again – this time with 2,000 young fruit trees in our luggage, which were planted together with the population with great enthusiasm.

Our next visit is planned for March: Then we want to look after the trees and support the population to ensure a good development of the trees. And even after that, we will keep in touch with the people from the villages and visit them again and again.

The total project costs amount to 8,780 euros - for the successful completion and the necessary follow-up support of the project, about 3,000 euros are still missing at the moment. Every donation to the Climate Fund is a valuable contribution to the success of the project and at the same time also an important sign of solidarity in these difficult times. On behalf of the people from the project region, I would like to thank you very much for every donation!

Mamadou Mbodji | Project coordinator of Naturefriends Senegal (ASAN)

More information on the ClimateFund and the possibility to donate money: https://climatefund.nf-int.org/en/