BIG NEWS!! THE CAMEROON COMMUNITY GRANARY PROJECT IS FULLY FUNDED HERE IN THE STATES! Generous contributors made the difference putting us within $1,600 of our US fundraising goal of $7,995. This allowed us to apply for a grant from a Special Fund for Agriculture in DC. Today, the grant filled the gap. THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO HELPED WITH MONEY, BUT ALSO NETWORKING AND MORAL SUPPORT!! We’ll continue to update the Community Granary blog to show local project progress.

This blog tells the story of our daughter, Elena, and the small, rural village of Ngan-Ha, Cameroon in central-west Africa. And, especially, about the dream of Ngan-Ha’s residents to construct their first Community Granary during the Fall of 2009.

The granary is a very basic technology advance that will benefit many families throughout the Ngan-Ha area – where practically everyone is a farmer – and make farming more safe, sustainable and profitable. What’s more, any surplus profits from user fees will help address the village’s serious teacher shortage.

See other posts for more about the Community Granary Project, Ngan-Ha and Elena.

The Ngan-Ha Village Community has made strong commitments to this project in the form of funding, building materials, land for a granary site, and sweat equity. Community leaders, students, a local women’s group and others are making the project happen.

This blog – our first – is very much a work-in-progress and will be updated and improved regularly.

- Merritt & Jill

Howdy! As of today, the Peace Corps Partnership Program (PCPP), based in Washington, DC, shows a total of $5,234 raised in the United States. This is an exciting 2/3  of our goal of $7,995! With another $761, we’ll be within $2,000 of our goal and we can apply the Peace Corps’ Special Fund for Agriculture to fill the gap.

But, we also know – because the lag-time between sending in a donation to PCPP and getting it posted on-line can last more than 2 weeks – that there are actually contributions in the pipeline that would bring that total up to around $6,500.  I’ll call the Partnership Program today and see if they can’t just slide some of those other checks across the desk and get them posted.  ;-}

I’ll post again as soon as we reach the magic $2,000 mark. THANKS AGAIN TO EVERYONE WHO HAS GENEROUSLY MADE CONTRIBUTIONS LARGE AND SMALL!!

There’s project progress being made in Ngan-Ha, Cameroon as well. See below.

Concrete Block for Granary_October 2009

At the recommendation of the Peace Corps Partnership Program (PCPP) staff, Elena worked with granary project architect, Nana Souaibou, during the last week to develop a smaller version of the Ngan-Ha Community Granary. Souaibou is based in the provincial capital of Ngaoundéré, several hours from the village by bush taxi.

The “project logic” is that this will allow the granary to get built more quickly by lowering fundraising goals here and in Cameroon, and by spurring the project’s various partners to wrap up their work. After creating a preliminary design for an 8 by 8 meter (26′ X 26′) facility, Elena took the concept back to key folks in the village of Ngan-Ha to see whether they will support a smaller granary. Then, she headed back to Ngaoundéré to finalize the design and work via email and phone with Peace Corps Cameroon and PCPP staffers to get a full consensus. After a few changes, the Community Granary is now officially a little over half its previous size, with the capacity to store around 3,000 sacks of millet, corn and beans. Still a great community resource!

This brings our fundraising target here in the United States down to $7,995 – we’re over halfway there! – and the village’s goal down to $2,931.

Cattle in the road.

The rural, primarily agrarian village of Ngan-Ha is working to construct a community granary so that local farmers can store their harvests. Due to lack of space, destruction by rodents, theft, and fire and weather damage, the loss of harvested crops is estimated to be as high as 1 out of every 3 sacks, making storage a very important issue for Ngan-Ha residents.

The granary will measure 8 by 8 meters (about 26 by 26 feet) and will allow for storage of up to 3,000 sacks of alimentary products, primarily corn, beans, cassava, and millet.

Funds generated by the project will be used to maintain the building.  Any excess profits will be used to pay the salary of one or more teachers at the local Ngan-Ha high school to help counteract a serious teacher shortage, improving the quality and quantity of education for local schoolchildren. High school students are helping to build the granary.

The granary will be built on this site.

The land has been donated by the village.

Elena worked with community members to carry out needs assessment with over 50 community group members from 2 women’s groups and two mixed-gender groups. A granary was repeatedly and independently listed as the top priority.

As already mentioned, most of the village population derives its income primarily from farming, but has no secure place to store its harvests. Farmers are forced to store their crops in their own houses or, more frequently, in straw-thatched huts in their fields.

By enabling farmers to have a higher, more reliable income, a community granary would allow local families to more easily meet other needs (such as education and nutrition for their children), and the implementation process of the project itself would hopefully empower community and group members with the skills and know-how to engage in other community projects deemed necessary by the community.  Without a granary, the farmers of Ngan-Ha would continue to deal with losses of income due the necessity of selling their products before there is a good market as well as the untimely destruction of such crops.

About 2,500 people live in the village of Ngan-Ha. Practically every family is a farm family earning most of their income through agriculture. Some of the major crops are cassava, corn, millet, and beans.  The upland savannah of north central Cameroon is covered with grass and scrubby trees. They get 6 months of rain followed by 6 months of zero rain.

Although villagers have huge challenges from poverty, tropical diseases, poorly designed and maintained roads, and other threats, some local practices are very sustainable. Most local homes are made of large red bricks – made from the red dirt – and roofs woven from local saplings and thick grass. A home like this lasts about 5 years and then gets replaced with another just like it.

Because this part of Cameroon was historically dominated by France, French is spoken commonly in the big cities where it is often the language of business, government and the classroom. But as you move out of the city – Ngan-Ha is 5 hours by bush taxi from the provinicial capital of Ngaoundere – African languages are more likely to be spoken first.

There are three major ethnic/language groups in Ngan-Ha. The Fulbe or Fulani are traditionally a nomadic, pastoral, trading people herding cattle, goats and sheep who keep somewhat separate from local agricultural populations, but still are part of the community. The upland savannah of north central Cameroon is a good place for grazing cattle. A second group of people are called the Mboum. Only about 39,000 people speak this language in Cameroon. The third group is the N’Di. These groups all live together in the village and accept the Belaka of Ngan-Ha as their chief. The Belaka settles disputes and traditionally controls  the allocation of land to families and larger groups of families.

One interesting reality about Ngan-Ha and other little villages in central-west Africa is that several hundred refugees live there. People from Cameroon’s neighbors – Chad, Nigeria and the Central African Republic – fleeing flood, famine or violence in their home country are welcomed and given support by the village. Ngan-Ha is not a wealthy community. Opening their doors to refugees puts a strain on local resources. But this is what you do when people knock on your door.

Different members of the community of Ngan-Ha have separately expressed an interest in a granary.  The project idea was first mentioned to Elena by members of a local women’s group,  Femmes de Manfou.  (The picture shows members of Femmes de Manfou with Jill during our visit in late-2008!)

The community of Ngan-Ha responded to the need of a granary by appointing a committee to work on the project. The Committee for Development – Comité de Gestion pour le Développement de Ngan-Ha – contains 15 members selected by citizens in each of the 15 “quartiers” in the village of Ngan-Ha.

Each group member is responsible for informing members of their “quartier” of progress on the granary project and they are also charged with collecting community contributions from members of their “quartier.”  As necessary, the group will hold meetings with the entire community to inform citizens of progress on the project and to ask for their input.

Once the project is completed, the Committee will hold regular public meetings to discuss the budget for revenues from the project, as well as receive feedback as to how the granary is being managed.  The committee will also send bi-annual financial and progress reports to the local authorities including the Belaka or Chief of the village, and the Sous-Prefet of Ngan-Ha, a locally-based federal official.  (The Committee for Development poses for a picture.) Note that women, often marginalized in community discussions and decisions, are active members of the committee.

The Belaka (Chief) of Ngan-Ha and Elena’s Cameroonian Counterpart, Saidoo, have also contributed significantly to the planning process and will also be involved with implementing the project.  Community members are contributing financially to the project, attending community meetings. Some of them will also provide the labor needed to build the granary. (The picture shows Saidoo, his wife Dee-Dee, and Elena.)

Our daugher, Elena, grew up (mostly) on a hobby farm in the rural Town of Pierce, Wisconsin. Pierce stretches along the Lake Michigan lakeshore north of the City of Kewaunee and south of the City of Algoma.

She homeschooled, took care of goats, played the Highland Bagpipes in the Clan Gathering Pipe & Drum Band from the age of 11 up through her teens. Eventually, she went off to college, first studying at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay and then at UW-Madison.

In college she studied political science and history, and took lots of French classes. While in Madison pursuing her bachelors degree, Elena lived at the International Cooperative House, a home for a couple of dozen people from all over the planet; her jobs at the co-op – where everyone works – included Membership Coordinator and Cook (her favorite job). Summers during her college years she worked as a Visitor Services Assistant at Peninsula State Park, Fish Creek, Door County; she lived in staff quarters at the park to save money, and worked 2nd jobs.

Elena spent most of her junior year studying at the Université de St Louis in the West African country of Senegal. In 2006, she graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with B.A. degree in Political Science from UW-Madison – with distinction in her major – and a concentration in African Studies.

Then, in the fall of 2007, Elena began a 2-year assignment with the Peace Corps in Cameroon, a country in central-west Africa. You can learn more about the the Peace Corps here: http://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=Learn.whatispc

After 8 weeks of technical and language training, she began her service as a Peace Corps volunteer in the rural village of Ngan-Ha, located in north-central Cameroon. To reach Ngan-Ha from Cameroon’s capital city of Yaounde, you take a 14-hour overnight train ride to the provincial capital of Ngaoundéré, followed a 5 – 8 hour ride by bush taxi.

Much of her work involves orchard and garden projects located within a  5-mile radius of the village. On these projects, and the granary project as well, she works closely with a local Cameroonian Counterpart named Saidoo, a community-minded  farmer, taxi driver (actually motorbike or “moto” driver), and medical supply retailer. Saidoo speaks fluent French, Ndi, Mboum and Fulfulde.

The village had applied to the Peace Corps for a volunteer to teach English at the local high school. When the Peace Corps wasn’t able to provide a teacher, Elena stepped up and taught English one day a week for the 2008-09 school year. This fall she’s teaching English two days a week.

Elena in front of her Test Plot in Ngan-Ha.