| | |  |  | Women's horticultural group success | A successful horticultural enterprise established by 20 young Eritrean mothers is earning each of them close to 20,000 Nakfa (€1,000) each a year.
The members of Mihyaw horticultural group have used the funds to rebuilt homes, educate children, buy oxen and other livestock, and have invested in furniture, clean water, farm buildings, and a wide range of other household improvements. | |
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|  | Water focus in Kimira | A new pilot project to provide clean drinking water and irrigation opportunities for a community of over 10,000 people in the hot dry Southern Red Sea region of Eritrea, is set to get underway.
A collaboration between Self Help Africa and the Agricultural Promotion and Development unit of the Ministry of Agriculture, the project will alleviate water shortages for householders and semi-nomadic communities, and support the irrigation needs of nomadic lifestock and small scale irrigated farming in the area.
Situated on the fringes of the Danakil Depression – the lowest point in Africa and the hottest and continent’s hottest and driest region, and Kilmira Pilot Water Project involves the construction of a central dam and reservoir, installation of nine kilometers of water pipelines, and establishment of water distribution points for householders, and of drinking troughs for animals.
2,400 households across 21 villages in the area will be serviced by the project. Amongst those who will benefit from the €40,000 scheme are over 700 families who are semi-nomadic pastoralists from the isolated Afar ethnic tribal group who live throughout the Danakil Depression, in both Eritrea and neighbouring Ethiopia. The Kimira Water Project, which will capture and store harvested seasonal rainwater run off is Self Help Africa’s first development initiative to be undertaken in the south of the Horn of Africa country. |
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| Water benefits | Villagers in Shekat village in Gogne are benefitting from the recent construction of a local rainwater harvesting pond in a local valley. The pond, which has a holding capacity of approximately 30,000 cubic metres should provide livestock owners with a year round watering hole for their animals.
Meanwhile, the judicious management of available water has been applied in Gogne by a group of small farmers at Armecha, who have constructed a series of gabion walls to allow them to divert a local seasonal stream through their farm-lands. The stream will allow them to produce a second crop, each year. |
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| Women's training | 160 women have taken part in an intensive training course in advance of the establishment of new women’s savings and credit co-operatives in remote south-western Eritrea.
The programme, which also provided training in management, administration and leadership for close to 40 women has been carried out in the Gogne district of Gash Barka Region, where Self Help Africa has been working for the past five years.
The training programme paves the way for the formation of a number of new member run savings and credit co-operatives, who will provide local women with small loans to allow them to establish small income generating enterprises.
Elsewhere, close to 100 women in Gogne participated in a training course in home economics, and a further 30 received training in the manufacture of fuel efficient cooking stoves.
More than 425 stoves have been produced and sold by local women in the project area, in the past three years. |
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| Pond construction | More than 210 households (approx. 1,200 people) are benefitting from the construction of a rainfall harvesting pond in Gogne during the second half 2008.
The utility will also service the drinking water needs of over 1,900 livestock in the area.
Meanwhile, remedial works have been undertaken to strengthen the construction of a second rain gathering pond in Gogne, after it had begun to experience seepage. |
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| | Inspiring irrigation | The 12 founder members of the Asugie small scale irrigation group in Gogne, Eritrea didn’t realise the influence they would have when their pilot horticulture project started in the area two years ago.
But the success of the scheme has become a model for others, and in the past year six similar community irrigation groups, involving a total of 55 local farmers, have been formed in their district. |
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| Situated in the hot and dry western lowlands of the country’s Gash Barka province, landowners in Gogne relied primarily on herding and subsistence agriculture until Self Help Africa began a programme to promote horticultural production in the region.
“I was able to produce food on my farm for just five months each year and used to spend the rest of the time selling firewood, palm fruit, and doing other jobs,” says group member Ismael Gufe. “Now I can farm all year around”.
The Asugie group produced chilli and other vegetables on six acres of irrigated land last year and earned more than €9,000/£8,000 from the plot. Six new horticultural groups have been established in the area, with in excess of 80 acres now irrigated for farming.
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| | Introduction to Self Help Africa | | Above is a short introduction to Self Help Africa and its work. |
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| School opened in daughter's memory | The elderly parents of an Irish schoolteacher who died tragically in early 2007, travelled to Eritrea recently to perform the official opening of a new school that was built in her memory.
Margaret and William Gill from Offaly, Ireland, travelled with Self Help to Adi Gebru, where they unveiled a memorial to their daughter at the site of a school that has been built in her memory. | | | Tree planting programme | | A major programme of tree planting is being undertaken in both the Emni Haili and Gogne projects. Nearly 100,000 tree seedlings of different species have been planted, providing rural farmers with cut and carry fodder crops for their livestock, shelter belts and a means of halting erosion on farm-land, and fruit trees, which will eventually provide households with an added source of nutrition, together with a potential source of additional income. Communities were also provided with training in tree nursery management. | | | Supplying local communities | A programme of activities was carried out in 2008 to tackle the shortage of equipment, and to build the capacity of local communities to increase productivity at farm household level.
Included amongst this work was the provision of ox-ploughs and other tools for sale through local farm input shops, and the commencement of work on the construction of a seed potatsprouting store in the Emni Haili area. Local materials for the construction of this facility were assembled by the community, and building work had started as the end of year approached. |
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| News from our African programmes : | | | | | | | |
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|  | A water reservoir to provide clean water was built |
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Sorghum seed multiplication | Local farmers in the Emni Haili area in Southern Eritrea are to begin seed multiplication of sorghum in 2009.
Improved quality sorghum stock has been provided by the country's agricultural research service, and planting and multiplication of high yielding sorghum will be started during the rainy season in Spring of 2009.
Farmer producers of multiplied seed will sell their produce to other landowners as part of a campaign to promote increased sorghum production. |
Beekeepers open shop in Asmara | Beekeepers Associations established with the support of Self Help Africa have established a retail outlet in Eritrea’s capital, to sell their honey and other bee products.
The enterprise in Asmara city follows the establishment of a shop in the market town of Dibarwa, and is part of an effort to strengthen local markets for the sale of honey, and heighten visability of the activity as an income generating activity.
Self Help Africa has been supporting a National Beekeeping Development Programme in Eritrea for more than five years, and in that time has supported thousands of householders to become involved in beekeeping activities.
In the past year the organisation has supported beekeepers to set up members associations in Adiquala, Emnihaili, Mendefera and Dekemare sub-regions, and facilitated training courses in management, administration and organisational development for more than 500 members of the four new associations.
The project also supported the breeding, multiplication and distribution of 200 new bee colonies, and assisted beekeepers with the planting of nearly 70,000 forage shrubs, plants and trees to provide locally available sources of food for bees.
Eritrea’s six-year-old beekeeping development programme reached a notable milestone, with the distribution of the 1,000th colony reared at the queen bee rearing centre at Mendefera. |
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| | | | Self Help Africa - UK
Second Floor, Westgate House,Dickens Court,
Hills Lane, Shrewsbury, SY1 1QU
Tel. +44 (0) 1743 277170 |
| Self Help Africa - Ireland
Kingsbridge House, 17-22 Parkgate Street,
Dublin 8, Co. Dublin, Ireland
Tel. +353 (0)1 6778880 |
| Self Help Africa Inc.
41 Union Square West, Suite 1027
New York, NY 10003, USA
Tel. +1 212 206 0847 |
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| | Self Help Africa is an international charity registered in Ireland and the United Kingdom Registered charity number: 6663 (Ireland), and 298830 (UK)
Self Help Africa is a non-profit 501(c) 3 organisation in the United States. | | | Self Help Africa receives
support from the following
institutional donors: |  |  |  |  |
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