end of year count
There are only a few days left until the end of the year and we have to review what we have done, always with the aim of improving and giving the best of Kakolum for this coming year.
2019 has served to close a project of which we are happy with the results: 120 women from the Kabar neighborhood continue to carry out agricultural work today in the orchard that we prepared, they have increased their harvests and their economic benefits. Women function completely self-sufficiently and our role now is simply as companions and friends: we can't help but take a walk through the garden from time to time, chat with them and watch the crops grow!
“To this day, 120 women from the Kabar neighborhood continue to carry out agricultural work in the orchard that we prepared.”
This year has also served to strengthen the entity's lines of action and consolidate a local team that we are delighted with. Manu, a feisty and brave woman who has been in charge of all administrative issues this year; Salomond and Bacary, experts in permaculture and involved in the development of their communities; Landing, a bridge between Kakolum and Diannah women's associations; or Souleyman, the Director of Diannah's CEM who one day came into our lives with a beautiful project and since then is identifying other actions to develop, now as part of the Kakolum team.
This teamwork has resulted in two projects that will begin during 2020, which we will report on in the coming months.
Kakolum has left its mark on the Kolda region!
During the months of September, October and November, the Kakolum team prepares and carries out training in sustainable agriculture techniques in the Kolda region, more specifically in the department of Vélingara.
There, the Bantandicori Association hired us to train more than 100 people from 13 rural communities where they had dug wells, so that they could learn to apply low-cost techniques that would increase the production of their orchards. Our favorite trainers, Salomond and Bacary – two essential people for Kakolum – packed their bags and moved to Vélingara with a 10-day training program. There they shared their knowledge about compost and natural pesticides, self-fertile mounds, crop association, creation of seed banks, irrigation needs... with a very interested audience who immediately got to work.
A month after the training we returned to Vélingara to do our first follow-up and we were very excited to see how the gardens have changed: the families have worked together to apply what they learned and the gardens have been filled with mounds of crops in which they begin to grow healthy and strong plants that will contribute to improving their food security and livelihoods.
Do you want to know more about Kakolum?
To close the year we have answered an interview for the people of Koalaboox. In it we talk about how we work on the ground, where we want to go, the cooperation model in which we believe...
Answering the questions has helped us reflect on what Kakolum means to us, on how we do things and how we want to continue doing them. Kakolum wants to be and is a speaker for the population of the place where we work, a tool that makes it possible to generate projects that promote self-sufficiency and improve the lives of the people for whom they are intended.
So this next year our goals are to continue along the same lines: sit down with women's associations, youth associations, people from the neighborhoods, the authorities... listen, ask, write down... and generate projects that adapt to the 100% to your needs and your dreams.
THANKS FOR EVERYTHING!
A fundamental part of Kakolum is you: the people who read us, who share our work, who have become members of the entity and/or who collaborate in whatever way we can continue taking steps and making possible projects designed with and for the population of Kafountine.
We wish you a happy 2020! THANK YOU!