Growing Family Prosperity, COFA’s agriculture program, has completed two full years. We started with 30 families in 5 villages in 2023, joined by 25 families in 5 other villages in 2024. Financial inputs are limited to the first year, but Mohamed Sesay, the agronomist program manager, and the small team of extension workers continued to visit and provide advice to the “class of 2023” throughout their second year. We have positive results to report for all 55 families. These recent pictures will give you an idea of how they tend their farms and animals.
Class of 2024
Working backwards through the year (because goats, in particular, are extremely photogenic), pairs of goats and chickens were distributed to all the new families in October. The goats and chickens speak for themselves (baaa and cluck).
Madora community
Mile 91 community
Maforay community
Yonkoro community
Groundnut Cultivation
The families all grew two crops of groundnuts (aka peanuts), using nuts saved from the first crop to plant the second.
Groundnut harvesting at Mile 91
Groundnuts for market in Madora
Reserved seeds for second groundnut cropping at Madora
Rice, Cassava, and other Crops
Cassava growing in Maforay
Carrying water to the fields in Yonkoro
Watering cassava in Yonkoro
Second cropping of cucumbers in Ro-Gbesseh
Rice nursery in Ro-Gbesseh
Weeding the maturing rice in Ro-Gbesseh
Class of 2023
The 2023 families are all thriving. Their prosperity continues to grow based on the “leg up” they got in 2023 in both material support and training in good agriculture practice from Mohamed and the team. And their livestock are doing the same!
Weeding groundnut fields in Makankoi
Upland rice growing in Gbomlimba
Rice nursey in Kalangba
The new kids in Taima community
And young chicks in Gbomlimba
More kids in Gbomlimba
It’s not an exaggeration to say that the lives of these 55 families have been transformed, not least by their own hard work and the dedication of Mohamed, Amara Sesay, Ishmiel Kamara, and Memunatu Kamara, but made possible by Growing Family Prosperity. And that was made possible by many of you reading this post through contributions to COFA. I’m thankful to and proud of everyone in that chain.
Growing Family Prosperity continues on! I’ll tell you about plans for the coming year in a future post. Happy holidays all.