Andando
Current donation: $50,000
Donations to date: $80,000
Andando helps rural Senegalese farmers dramatically increase their food security by teaching climate-smart agriculture practices. Our support will allow Andando to operate two native tree nurseries in the Kaolack and Podor regions of Senegal, add an additional 400 families to their program, and start the process to reforest 100,000 trees.
Why They're Climate Smart
In Senegal, hundreds of years of destructive colonial agricultural practices have led to severe deforestation and loss of soil fertility. Andando combats this by constructing women's cooperative gardens, installing solar pumps for water generation, partnering with local farmers to incorporate native trees into field crop production, and reforesting lands using the forest garden permaculture method (intentionally placing plants to mimic the natural environment).
In the last two years, Andando's 33 women's gardens have yielded over 1.5 million pounds of organic produce and generated a profit of over $400,000 for more than 3,500 women — without any pesticides, herbicides, or synthetic fertilizers. In addition, they have reduced their water consumption, created fertile topsoil, and created natural barriers (live thorny fences and windbreaks) that both protect the land and sequester carbon.
Why They Get Our Continued Support
In 2023, Andando added 675 families to their women's cooperative gardening program, germinated over 15,000 beneficial tree seedlings, and completed construction on a tree nursery and agroforestry center in Podor (including sinking a borehole to provide water security to the facility). Now, with our continued donation, Andando will expand the program to more communities in rural Senegal.