Rosemary North in Freetown
Every morning in the rainy season, groups of women sling babies on to their backs with bright wraps and walk along narrow dirt paths in the tropical forest to their gardens. The 20 women in the village of Gombu who work in the Mothers’ Garden spend the day weeding, planting crops and sowing the seeds of peace.
Working together makes sense, says Fati Musa, a gardener and women’s leader in Gombu, since a lot of agricultural knowledge was lost in the war, which ended officially in January 2002.
“If you work as a team it is difficult to make a grave mistake. There will be someone who can remind you what to do,” Fati says. “It’s very difficult for other people to help you if you are working in isolation. So if you join the team you will learn from the others.”
Crops, such as corn, peanuts, okra, potato leaves, cassava, peppers, krain krain (a leafy green vegetable) and rice enrich families’ diets. The 20 women produce enough for the 2,300 people in the village. One of their motivations for starting the group was to enhance food security after past crop failures.
If the harvest is good, they sell surplus crops. The money is used to buy materials for building latrines, to secure clean drinking water or to pay school fees.
The venture also provides demonstration food, allowing health workers to show people from five nearby villages how to prepare nutritious meals for their families.
Gardens all over Sierra Leone have been started by Mothers’ Clubs with the aim of improving health. Supported by the Sierra Leone Red Cross, the clubs teach women about good nutrition, breastfeeding, hygiene, immunization and basic health care.
Many of the clubs decide to start a gardening group, which the Red Cross supplies with tools, seeds and agricultural advisers.
The women’s work is sorely needed. The United Nations humanitarian index lists Sierra Leone as the world’s least developed country. The West African country has the world’s worst maternal mortality rate (1.8 in 100), and some of the highest death rates for under-five year olds (28.6 in 100) and infant mortality (17 in 100). Poor nutrition also leaves people vulnerable to contagious diseases, many of which are fatal in West Africa.
Last year, the Sierra Leone Red Cross Society helped establish gardens in 58 communities in 10 districts. Almost 1,000 women worked in the gardens, supplying food to their families and communities. This year the society, whose health programme is supported by the British, Canadian and Swedish Red Cross, hopes to bring the programme to another 55 communities.
In Gombu, near the city of Kenema, Red Cross nurse and midwife Josephine Momoh says the gardens have already improved the health of the children she sees in her clinic.
“It’s less common to see anaemia,” she says. “The mothers show other people the simplest way to prepare leafy vegetables, without overcooking. And they encourage mothers to give their children vegetables.”
Fati Musa says the garden has also been fertile ground for rebuilding village life after the war, when many people fled: “We were separated by war but when we came back it was good for us to work as a team because that is going to help heal part of the trauma.”
“When we work together we can talk about certain things and forget it. Or someone can advise you. It is actually a way of solving problems and making us very strong to forge ahead,” she adds.
In Kenema, the Red Cross branch chairman Sandy Moijueh would like to give “seed money” to more gardening clubs to improve people’s health and help rebuild communities by getting them working in teams.
“If I woke up tomorrow morning and found money in the account I would pay attention to women,” he says. “In Africa, women are only found in the kitchen. If I had enough money I would improve the lot of women.”
Related Links:
Sierra Leone: appeals, updates and reports
Sierra Leone midwives pass on secrets to a good start in life
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