Mariama Sonko and other members of the “Nous Sommes la Solution” motion participate in a lemon balm pecking workshop in the Casamance town of Niaguis, Senegal
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Copyright © africanews
Sylvain Cherkaoui/Copyright 2020 The AP. All rights scheduled.
By Agencies
Senegal
When Mariam Sonko’s dad passed away when she was a child, her mom had a hard time to look after her and her brother or sisters. As holds true throughout Senegal and West Africa normally, females are not entitled to land ownership as it is anticipated that when they wed, they will leave their neighborhood.
After transferring to her partner’s town, Sonko and a group of ladies encouraged a landowner to lease to them a little plot of land in return for part of their harvest. They planted fruit trees and began a market garden. 5 years later on, when the trees had plenty of papayas and grapefruit, the owner kicked them off.
Sonko is now the president of a 115,000-strong rural females’s rights motion in West Africa called We Are the Solution.
She deals with training female farmers who typically have no access to education, discussing their rights and funding women-led farming tasks.
Sonko’s training center now utilizes over 20 individuals, with assistance from little companies like the Agroecology Fund and CLIMA fund. In one week, Sonko and her group trained over 100 females from Senegal, Guinea-Bissau and Gambia in agroforestry and micro gardening.
After she began to generate income, individuals observed that she made financial investments in her kids’s education and clothing.
Now another obstacle has actually emerged impacting ladies and guys alike: environment modification.
In Senegal and the surrounding area, temperature levels are increasing 50% more than the worldwide average, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and the UN Environment Program states rains might visit 38% in the coming years.
Where Sonko lives, the rainy season has actually ended up being much shorter and less foreseeable. Saltwater is attacking her rice paddies, triggered by increasing water level. Some farmers have actually even deserted their rice fields.
Sonko is now attempting to establish 7 brand-new training centers throughout southern Senegal. “There’s excessive need,” she stated. Glancing back at the circle of ladies studying in the fading light, she stated: “My terrific battle in the motion is to make humankind comprehend the significance of ladies.”
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