Help for Handaga Village
Help for Handaga
Nothing can bring a grown man to tears than the site of a dying child and the feeling of total and utter helplessness.
This is a constant feature of life in the village of Handaga, a small forgotton dwelling in the drought stricken country of Niger.
Over the past two years a group of selfless individuals together with support from local businesses and the charity Questa Zoura, have been visiting the region, trying to help the people of Handaga by building new school rooms, providing a limited amount of food aid, trying to help the villagers grow their own crops and medical help.
Mervyn Church, one of the groups founder members, has been visiting the region on and off over the past two years, more recently having just returned to the region in June. He reports that the situation is now so desperate that people are having to go without any food for 3 days at a time. The School Director, Ibro, also reports that children are being born premature, due to malnutrition and are dying without fundamental basics, food, water and medical care.
The group feel that the situation is now so desperate that they are planning another trip back to the region in August where they hope to demonstrate the feasibitliy of using Hydroponics, as a way of growing crops. Hydroponics involves providing the plant with specific nutrients in controlled amounts that maximise the plant growth.
This method has been successful in many parts of the world but this will be a first in Niger!
The group have engaged the interest of a well kown documentary maker, Will Prosser, who produced the film “The Tsumani and the Sea Took Us” in 2006.
Will also just happens to be a fantastic artist and an expert in Hydroponics. He has agreed to accompany the team in August and visit the village to find out for himself the full scale of the impending disaster.
The real hurdle is to somehow engage the villagers fully and immerse them in the process and for this reason, the team aim to show the villagers a film about how hydropnics can help to take charge of their own destiny. With effort, hard work and determination they can take charge of their own destiny and not rely on the handouts From the World Food Programme, which don’t always reach this particular region of Africa.
Over the next couple of months Creative Tops will be following Mervyn and his team and logging their progress as they strive to help just one of many communitities in this unforgiving part of Africa.
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Creative Tops supports Handaga Village in Niger
Creative Tops together with Mervyn Church and Weston Removals of Petworth, West Sussex have offered financial support to the charity, Quest Zouera. Mervyn Church has currently just come back from the region and reports that the drought is currently taking its toll on the inhabitants. His report is shown below:
“The overall situation is deteriorating quickly with widespread famine, dying livestock and malnutrition. Our village of Handaga is existing on meal per day comprising of a millet ‘gruel’. But, the villagers are in the main well - we transported 14 to hospital on our second day there ( the bush grapevine soon works). Infections ( by-product of malnutrition) being the norm. The temperatures were +44 ‘C early afternoon, ground dry as there has been no rain since last September and when we departed they have a further 3 months before the new millet harvest can be harvested. They are existing on a basic diet of millet no supplements, no vegetables dried or otherwise and the only additives being leaves from the trees. All food is supplied via the WFP ( World Food Programme) We donated a some goats , rice and vegeatbles for them to have a ‘feast’
Our work involved enlarging the TGA ( tropical garden area) and ring fencing it to prevent incursion by livestock and the odd camel or two ! Within this new area we set out a system of trenches in a ‘X’ formation . Each has a 500 litre water butt and the trenches are approx. 10 m long, lined with a membrane and backfilled with the natural fertilisers. So dug and laid in all is some 400 m of new gardens
They are then to be fitted with a ‘drop by drop’ irrigation system. A variety of seeds were also supplied and when we left the villagers were back filling ready for the seed planting. Due to the failed harvest last year the millet crop was unable to provide the necessary seeds for the next year, to overcome this we sourced and purchased 200 Kg of seed. Without this the village could not plant its new crop so the problems are increasing in areas without support.
In addition to the above we carried out further work in the school, this now has had all desks / tops replaced and the classrooms decorated. The school has also benifited from a donation by us of additional rice, vegetables and school first aid equipment . We also financed the school prizegiving day which is on the last day of term (25th June) with a ‘feast’. But after the school closes the real problems begin, until then each pupil enjoys a good meal served daily. But with little food at home and the long period of famine ahead of them before they harvest the new crop I can see the problems escalating. We are monitoring the situation on a weekly basis and I have arranged for a further field trip to the village on 10 TH July 2010. During my stay this time we met up with a Unicef lady from the UK who has expressed interest in our TGA she will accompany Samira ( our lady on the ground there) in July.
Elsewhere during our travels we witnessed widespread evidence of the drought, famine and hardships facing these people. Livestock dead, emancipated and the effects of malnutrition as mothers give birth prematurely.
I am intending to return on or about 27th August 2010 hopefully with Rob Garley when we can film the new TGA’s ”
Please review the Video shown below which gives you an idea of the terrible conditions that the people of Handaga are up against, but with financial support and help with growing and harvesting their own crops, we hope that conditions will improve.
We will be blogging about our work in Handaga on a regular basis.
