Catholic Relief Services:
What they do in Gambia

		Notes from  The Gambia  Tom Brodd

Like all Catholic Relief Service (CRS) programs around the world, CRS/The Gambia works on a number of different programs in which they endeavor to assist the impoverished to be able to better their lives and the lives of their children.

So with this in mind, I would like to conduct you on a short tour of what CRS is doing in Gambia.

Sesame project

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First off, we start with the program with which I am helping, which is the sesame project. This project, that is aimed at women farmers and started about 10 years ago, was originally begun as a way to assist pregnant women and children to get more and better nutrition.

Because the diet here is limited, especially for pregnant women and small children, CRS was looking for a low cost supplement that could be added to the diet to increase its nutritional value. As sesame oil has high concentrations of minerals and vitamins and can be grown here, CRS decided to assist the women's groups in the country with sesame production for home consumption as cooking oil.

As the project progressed, the value of sesame as a cash crop became apparent. This opened up new horizons in the program because sesame would help the farmers diversify their crop base and bring in extra money which could be used for school fees, medical expenses, and other items that they would not otherwise be able to afford.

The main disadvantage for using sesame as a cash crop was the low price paid by the exporter, as the low volumes produced did not encourage the exporters to pay the market price.

CRS next stepped in to help organize the women farmers into sesame groups so as to increase sesame production through better planting and harvesting techniques.

To address the low prices paid for the sesame, CRS helped to organize the women farmers into a nation wide organization call NAWFA (National Women Farmers Association) to negotiate with the exporters the price paid to the farmers. This helped to increase the price paid for sesame fivefold and was so successful that many of the men now also farm sesame.

Safety Net

Another project, called Safety Net, like the sesame project, is aimed at helping the nutrition of people here. But this project is aimed at assisting entire families to meet their food needs.

In the two or three months before the harvest, food in the rural areas is in short supply and many poorer families are forced to eat only two or even one meal a day.

The causes of this lack of enough food for the entire year are many. The main reasons are the poor soils on which people farm, lack of funds for fertilizers and other inputs, and the spotty nature of the rains in some years.

This project mostly deals with food distribution to those most in need during what is called here the "hungry season." Along with food distribution, CRS is working with the local communities to assist them in coming up with ways to assist those in need through the communities' own resources, as internal solutions to problems are always more long-lasting and better suited to the need.

Health programs

A large and growing project is the anti-malaria bed net campaign. This project's current aim is to supply a mosquito bed net to all pregnant women and families with young children in the most populated division of the country.

In the coming year the program is set to expand greatly as it will then cover the entire country. You would not think that mosquito netting would make a big difference in the lives of people, but in sub-Saharan Africa the number one cause of death of children under five is malaria.

CRS also has a program to assist those living with HIV/AIDS to get the proper nutritional care they need so they are able to use the drugs that combat the disease.

Disaster relief

Last but not least is disaster relief which here can range from plagues of locusts to flash floods along the river, not uncommon during the rainy season. Also, refugees' relief is an ongoing concern as the Casamance district of Senegal, on the south side of Gambia, has had a long low-level separatist movement occurring. This occasionally breaks out into violence causing many people to cross over to Gambia for safety.

These programs are only a small example of what CRS does in just one of the 99 countries in which it serves.

Tom Brodd of Madison is living in The Gambia, West Africa, as a participant in Catholic Relief Services (CRS) Volunteer Program, which provides U.S. Catholics with opportunities to share their skills through CRS and to live in solidarity with their brothers and sisters around the world.