We have called our project in Tanzania (Africa) "Greening Africa". We work with the NGO ReGreening Initiatives for its implementation.
During 2019 we have continued our two projects in Tanzania in the districts ("Villages") of Vilima Vitatu, Sarame, Mwada and Sangaiwe, which are located in Babati, in the department of Manyara. These "districts" have a total population of 15,000 people. As always, our participation goal is 60% of the total population of each of the communities in the districts where we work. Of the total population, 81% have participated in the project.
During the year 2019 the "districts" suffered tremendous flooding as well as a prolonged drought. Despite these adverse weather conditions, the Greening Africa project has had significant achievements.
The success of the work with the families is due in large part to the effort and commitment of the women, who were very clear about the importance of all the improvements for their family and themselves.
Throughout the project, we have coordinated our activities very closely with the Tanzanian authorities.
The results achieved with the families in the four "villages" have shown that the Pachamama Raymi works extraordinarily well.
Toribio Huillca Yábar has been the Director of Greening Africa since the beginning. The great success and results obtained are due to him, to his dedication and courage, his intelligence, his very wide experience and knowledge brought from the Peruvian Andes. He successfully faced the difficulties posed by the diversity of cultures, the inclemency of the climate. In addition, he had to deal with ostriches, zebras, monkeys and other wild animals.
Main achievements
The improvement of housing, just like in Peru. All participating families did so.
Part of the housing improvement is the construction of wells to supply water to the families, their animals and their gardens. Only 40% of the participating families dug these wells, which are 8 to 30 meters deep, since salty groundwater is found in many places. The families dig their well and the project supports them with bricks and cement for lining and finishing. Perhaps the main contribution of the project is prospecting with hand drills. Thanks to this, we can determine if the water is fit for consumption. In this way the family can know if it is worthwhile or not to build their well.
The population is highly motivated to build their own well since their alternative would be to walk many kilometers to bring a couple of buckets of water to their house.
Annual crops are very susceptible to drought and flooding. In addition, they threaten the fertility of the soil. For this reason the project promotes the change of a part of the annual crops for perennials, such as trees: timber trees, fruit trees and forage trees. During the 5 years of the project, 2'020,000 trees survived, while almost half a million trees had died for various reasons.
An important part of the planted trees were fruit trees, including mango, papaya, guava, and cashew. 32 families planted mangoes for business on 14 hectares in total.
