Sector Fair

March 11, 2011


We had a Sector Fair today. There was a table set up for each of the 5 different sectors that PC works in. Education, Health, Water & Sanitation, Small Enterprise Development and Environment. Each table had Staff explaining the different projects being worked on and the success of the volunteers working on them. It was explained in Bambara for the homologues and in English for the rest of us. It is interesting to see what people are working on and that PC really does work. One of the biggest goals of PC is to bring to the communities information and the means by which to improve the quality of their lives and to be able to maintain and sustain any projects and that quality after we are gone. It’s nice to know it works.

Health had a table explaining the importance of nutrition and health education. Including family planning, the 3 food groups and eating properly and sanitation. There is a kit we can use when we go into the schools to teach family planning and the prevention of AIDS including condoms and a wood penis to show those interested how to use said condoms. I guess a wood penis is funny no matter what language you’re listening to. Everyone got a kick out of that.

Education talked about the schools in general. Statistics show that only 34% of Malian adults are literate. That’s some pretty low statistics. I’m sure most of those are men as statistics show that most girls do not continue school after 6th grade (if that) because of the chores they will be required to do at home.

Water and Sanitation showed the different ways they are building wells. They also have this hand crank system they are working on to make pulling water from the wells easier. It seems like such a simple less dangerous solution to pulling water with a bag and rope standing over a huge hole with a 30 foot drop. I wonder why you don’t see more of these around.

Small Enterprise Development is basically income generating projects. One of the PCVs in SED is going to be working with a Mango company in trying to generate income from mangos all year round and not only in Mango season. It seems odd to me that they don’t do more work in this area as far as canning or jarring. They would have food security all year round if they could work up this type of business here. As of right now they export their fruits out of the country. It is there that they are jarred or canned and it is that country that benefits from the income that is generated. Meanwhile this country suffers economically and doesn’t eat property for most of the year. I’m sure there is a huge expense in starting up a canning or jarring company but I would think in a short period of time it would pay for itself.

Environment was the most interesting to me. They talked about gardening, the shea tree and the bashi niri ji (moringa tree). They were growing gardens out of old rice bags. Herbs, onions, lettuce. If you make small gardens like these, or start your gardens in these bags, it is easy to keep yourself in vegetables all year round. Shea trees are easy to grow and can be started in bags until they reach a size to be transplanted directly in the ground. The same is true for the Moringa tree.

SED and environment work diligently and closely with the other sectors to try and improve and insure food security. Which has 3 major components. Food accessibility, food availability and food utilization. Accessibility is the means by which every household should have food accessible to them at an affordable price all year round. Availability is just that. That food is available to each household at an affordable price...all year round. And utilization is that these household are using their available resources to feed their families all year round. Some of these components are issues brought on by Malians themselves. They grow these wonderful fruits and vegetables and then sell all of them at the market not even keeping enough to feed their own family. Then they buy rice and beans and potatoes because they are cheaper. No real nutritional value to speak of.