Child Fund Meeting for Garden/Nutrition Project

The key community members of Dassalami Soce and I held a meeting with Child Fund on January 21^st 2014. The garden and nutrition projects have been approved. The purpose of the meeting was to confirm our collaboration for the next fiscal year. I asked the Child Fund agents to provide documentation to ensure Dassalami Soce is part of their intervention sites. This will prevent future conflicts between the community and Child Fund.

One of the realities of working for an NGO in a developing country is that some organizations work in rural communities without providing necessary documents showing their level of commitment to finish projects. As a consequence, if another organization comes along, it is challenging to track the work of the former NGO because there are no written documents proving their intervention in the community. We discussed potential work we would be undertaking such as community gardens and nutrition trainings.

The Child Fund representatives discussed plans to use a small portion of the school garden as a pilot test for the project. This would give them the opportunity to observe how the community would work together in the garden. It would also allow them to assess the improvements that need to be made to build larger community gardens.

One of the many factors that were considered was the fence around the garden. The second problem was figuring out who would water the garden. It was decided that the garden would be watered by the women. The community agreed to use Millet branches to protect the garden from goats who usually graze in the surrounding areas. 

This is one of the biggest causes that contribute to the failure of community gardens. If a fence is not installed, goats will eat the crops which will lead to lack of foods in family households and loss of revenue. The vegetables produced would be divided between the French school and the poste de santé.

The representatives of Child Fund gave the ASC of the health facility, “registres IEC/CCC”weight scales and“registres Suivi Promotion de la Croissance (SPC).”Those registers were given to us to facilitate our tasks when we screen children in Dassalami Soce, Saroudia, and Boutilimite for malnutrition.

We deliberated on combining nutrition trainings with the garden. This would train people on various methods to reduce malnutrition rates in these communities. Child Fund will continue the baby weighing every month with the Care Group volunteers.

Some of the people who participated in the meeting include Lamine Sonko, Director of the French Elementary school of Dassalami Soce, Ibrahima Diallo, Member of the Health Committee, Alassane Ndiaye, ASC, Aramata Sonko, Treasurer of the Care Group, Sounkarou Diame, Matrone & Bagenkho, Johnnie Senghor, Leader of community cleaning project, Insa Demba, President of Health Committee, Venchele Saint Dic, PCV, Moussou Sarr, Superviseur du Programme du Renforcement de la Nutrition de Sokone (Child Fund), Serigne Backe, Responsable de Zone de Sokone (Child Fund), and Diene Faye, Mobilisateur communautaire de Karang (Child Fund).

In the end of the meeting, we drafted plans of action to start the work with the community. One of the strategies would be to train the Care Group volunteers and the school staff on various health communication tools. The orientation will take place on February 12^th 2014.