Buzz Women barely one year into her Gambian journey in 2019, we found ourselves in a global pandemic. A form of intervention for sustainable living and supporting growth was initiated by Buzz Women teams in 2020, we supported a couple of communities with farm and garden inputs to support themselves during these trying times.
Fass Chabai community garden in the Fonis was fenced and cassava stems were supplied to start up a community cassava farm. Likewise, in Sukuta women's Garden, we built a borehole to make water accessible to the women of the Garden. In the South we reached Gunjur, women of the ancient village are mainly into gardening during the dry seasons and low-key in the rainy seasons, because most vegetables suffer during this period due to the garden being flooded by rainwater flowing downstream from the village. In 2019 few women had an interest in starting a small rice farm, but Buzz Women intervened by supplying the women of the garden with rice seedlings and some bags of fertilizers to boost their production and trigger a sustainable living practice after two days of the Fangdema financial literacy training.
Three years down the line the entire length & breadth of the MbangBanta (Am strong) women's Garden in Gunjur is covered with rice this summer of 2022. A record harvest! The women find great benefits in growing the rice they eat and rendering the field workable during the rainy seasons of the Gambia. “Most parts of the garden are flooded by water during the peak of the rainy season, said one woman. Having to grow our rice and feed our families healthy meals is an exceptional contribution to our lives. During the dry season, we grow other vegetables to sell and give us extra cash to use with our rice, almost every woman has grown some rice and we are not regretting any moment we spend on it”.