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Niger Food Crisis

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Amanass is one of five villages at the edge of the Sahara desert in Niger, where Samaritan’s Purse currently offers an emergency ‘Cash for Work’ program. Since February of this year the people of the village have run out of grain and have been left with very little to eat. There is local food available in the markets, but families do not have any money to buy it.

Many of the men of the village have left to go to bigger towns to seek work, leaving their wives and children. The women forage in the bush for wild fruits and leaves just to sustain themselves. Samaritan’s Purse workers have seen women digging in termite mounds to gather the grain that the insects have stored.

Samaritan’s Purse’s program was established as a way for villagers to earn money. Able-bodied men work by digging crescents, or demi-lunes, designed to catch rainwater, stop topsoil erosion, promote plant growth, and ultimately make the hardpan soil useable.

Women care for young multi-purpose trees that Samaritan’s Purse is raising to be planted in the demi-lunes.  Women also work breaking the top of the soil to plant grass seed, which will create pasture land for nomadic cattle herders.  This project is boosting the capacity, income, and livelihood of the local population, while helping to regenerate degraded, unusable land.  With the earnings they make, the beneficiaries can now afford to purchase grain in the market to feed their families.

Fadima is one of 77 beneficiaries in the village of Amanass.  Fadima used to cut down trees for firewood, which she would carry for three days to the market. There she would sell it, using the money to buy food for her family. She would then make the three day walk back home.

“Walking three days was very painful for me,” Fadima says, “I am grateful for Samaritan’s Purse because I no longer need to sell wood to survive.” 

The results of such desperate attempts at survival can be devastating to the environment. Cutting down local trees has caused desertification and in turn destroyed the livelihoods of farming and herding around Amanass.
The people of Amanass say that this Cash for Work program reminds them of the harvest time, where there is no hunger and food is abundant.

Ways You Can Help
Pray Please pray for the people of Niger, as they struggle to cope with food insecurity and please pray that God will deliver bountiful crops this year.		Give Partner with Samaritan’s Purse to help bring emergency food to Niger and other countries that are dealing with food insecurity. Donate Here.