Women • In Focus

(Sheila McKinnon photo)

As literacy and economic resources increased, family health improved as well — showing the power of "simple" community interventions, even in one of the 10 poorest countries on earth.

The Dynamic Farmers of Boboye

Indi Zibo lives in the village of Kokitamu, in the Boboye district of Niger. As of the year 2000, her family, like most in Niger, was very poor. Her husband spent much of the year away from home, seeking work as an unskilled laborer in distant cities and towns. Indi, also unskilled, cared for their seven young children. Frequently, they lacked food; "and because of this," she explained, "my children were malnourished and often sick."

Then, Indi joined 49 other Kokitamu women in an Africare program offering functional literacy training, health and nutrition education, basic accounting skills and a small credit fund. Today, Indi's life, and that of her family, has changed. She grows and sells vegetables, raises livestock and works as a seamstress with the women's group. With adequate food and care, her children are healthy at last.

Kokitamu was one of eight villages similarly assisted by Africare during 2003 in Boboye. There, as literacy and economic resources increased, family health improved as well — showing the power of "simple" community interventions, even in one of the 10 poorest countries on earth.

Africare goes way back with the women of Boboye. For example, in the early 1980s, Africare provided extensive agricultural and business development assistance to an already renowned 350-member women's co-op in Boboye's Kolbou village. Harvests, incomes and self-reliance increased many-fold as a result.

 

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(Updated, Dec. 19, 2007)