By Niandou Ibrahim, CARE Niger
Guilley, a village deep in Niger, reflects the impact of the food crisis that 6,130 villages are living through in Niger. But Guilley also reflects the resilience and the resourcefulness of women in coping through crises in the Sahel.
Located 650 kilometres from the capital of Niamey and at least 100 kilometres from the nearest paved road, 252 families live in the village of Guilley – 205 of which are extremely vulnerable to the current food insecurity.
The people of Guilley welcome us in a hazy twilight, with smiles numerous but strained, considering the context of the ongoing crisis. On this day of the normally animated weekly market, the village seems to be living in slow motion. Songs and dances seem to have been replaced by interminable murmurs and sighs that accompany the many and unending discussions around food. In the distance, beyond the water tower overlooking the village, several skeletal goats laboriously attempt to clamber up a hill in a desperate search for a few blades of grass on which to graze.
“Here, people and animals fight to survive in the face of this year’s particularly vicious food crisis, where markets are full of food but people don’t have money to buy it,” said Aicha Baja, a resident of the village who received us into her house, according to local custom.
“I am well placed to know, as head of the household, but also as one of those responsible for the management of collective prevention and coping activities,” she added.
Nearly 60 years old, widowed and responsible for a household of six people, Aicha Baja knows food crises, their symptoms, their consequences and the survival strategies – from the most accepted, to the most morally challenging. In Niger, it is the women who implement household coping strategies during food crises. Women, for example, are responsible for rationing meals or for harvesting leaves and wild fruits to supplement the family’s diet. When all this isn’t enough, it is the small animals – the women’s savings – which are sold to buy food.
“All these strategies aren’t working any more, because wild fruits haven’t been growing this year because of the drought, and the animals are fetching a low price on the market because of low demand… If we are still standing in Guilley, it’s certainly because of our risk reduction program that we implement with CARE,” said Aicha.
Aicha Baja is part of a group of five women elected by the women of the village to manage three activities for the past three years in collaboration with CARE, and with funding from DFID, to reduce risks from disasters: cash transfers, savings and loans groups, and the creation of a local stockpile of cereals.
The cash transfer in Guilly, of a total of US$23,000, has helped 131 extremely vulnerable women between March and December 2009. Aicha, who had just lost her sight, used a part of the money (US$113) to have an eye operation at the hospital 200 kilometres away. The other part of the money she used to purchase two animals, which have since multiplied into a veritable little herd. In Guilley, 2,327 animals were purchased by the women using the CARE cash transfer. As of March 2010, the herd had grown to 2,967 animals in this village.
The savings and loan group operates with technical support from CARE across four women’s groups of approximately 40 women each. Savings of US$1,300 deposited by the women now enables members to access microcredit and to lead entrepreneurial initiatives that help them reduce the risks of household shocks such as the food crisis.
The creation of the village cereal stockpile is one of the women’s initiatives, to ensure the availability and access to food. CARE helped the women with an initial supply of sorghum and by providing training for the management committee, of which Aicha Baja is a member.
“The existence of this stockpile is reassuring for our village. Thanks to this stockpile, we have certainty that we can stabilize our workforce for the coming field work, and we have control over the prices,” she said.
About CARE: CARE Niger was established in 1974 to respond to the famine affecting the country, and has worked on several projects that are relevant for food security since then, notably to strengthen good governance and sustainable livelihoods.
In recent years, CARE Niger has been focusing on strengthening governmental health and sanitation services and nutrition programmes, for example via the training of community health-workers and awareness-raising; implementing savings and loan associations as well as programmes to improve agricultural techniques; promoting good governance in the local management of water resources and livestock; and supporting community-based mechanisms to plan for crises and mitigate their impact.
CARE is planning on extending its work on disaster management and prevention, to help create sustainable livelihoods for 150,000 households in extreme poverty.