Thursday, July 9, 2009

May 30, 2009

A little bit about where I am…

I arrived at Gomponsom on the evening of May 19 on the back of Abdoulaye’s Yamaha 100cc motorcycle, obediently wearing my helmet, and wondering what my home for the next 3 months would look like. Abdoulaye is my counterpart, and I’ll be working with him a great deal this summer.

Riding on the back of Abdoulaye's motorcycle.

Gomponsom is located about 13 km east of Yako, the capital of the Passore province. Yako is about 100 km north of Ouagadougou. Yako is connected to Gomponsom by a gravel road, on which you can always find a fellow traveller on a motorcycle, a scooter, on a bicycle, or on foot. The road passes through agricultural lands and the village of Zambele.

The village of Gomponsom has a population of about 1200 people, and is the capital of its department, which shares the same name. The Department of Gomponsom encompasses 15 neighbouring villages.

It is currently the end of the dry season. The rains are beginning to fall, signalling the beginning of the rainy season. For farmers, this means that it’s time to start planting.

My first impression of Gomponsom was that it was full of large open spaces. Imagine yourself in rural Quebec right after the snow has melted. This is what it is like now in Gomponsom, with the addition of farm animals roaming around freely (these include cattle, goats, chicken, guinea fowl, donkeys, pigs, dogs, cats, and horses)

The wide open spaces of Gomponsom

I’m currently living in sleeping quarters that my partner organization has for interns, it is located on the grounds of my partner organization. The first night I arrived at Gomponsom, Abdoulaye gave me a tour of the AKNGS (Association Kombi Naam de Gomponsom pour le Sahel… aka the organization I am partnered with): an office, a stockroom, a multifunctional platform, a learning center where various workshops are held, a shop for farmers to buy inputs such as seeds and fertilizers, a bank for farmers to get credit loans…


The learning center at AKNGS

A little bit about my work…

I am partnered with an organization called l’Association Kombi Naam de Gomponsom pour le Sahel, which from now on we’ll call AKNGS.

The focus of my work with the AKNGS is to support one of their various programs: the CEF program. CEF stands for ‘Conseil à l’exploitation familiale’; here, ‘exploitation familiale’ means ‘farm’, and ‘conseil’ is similar to ‘management consulting’.

What is CEF?

CEF is an approach aiming to reinforce farmers’ capacity to plan, monitor, and evaluate their activities, in the aim of providing them with a tool to facilitate their decision-making.

What context is it operating in?

During the rainy season (~May/June - October), families prioritize growing millet, sorghum, and maize. The harvests of the rainy season will be stored within their households and serve to feed the family for the year. Some farmers will have their ‘greniers’ full in November, but will run out of food stocks by June or July, leading to hunger for many families.
What I see when I get up in the morning. In the middle of the picture you can see a 'grenier', where millet from last year is currently stored.

There are many reasons why this happens; one reason that has been identified is that it is challenging for farmers to take into account all the necessary factors while making decisions concerning their farms, at critical times during the year. CEF acts like a mirror that provides farmers with the necessary information to consider important factors.

What does CEF look like in Gomponsom?

My counterpart is a field worker in charge of accompanying farmers through the CEF program. Here is the list of activities he carries out with CEF:

1. Outreach

- The field worker holds a session with farmers within the association. The goal is to make farmers aware of the CEF program and invite them to join

2. Planning

- The field worker holds a session with each CEF farmer group, where every farmer highlights his needs for the year, what he plans to grow during the season, and how he intends to meet his needs

- The field worker holds a workshop with each farmer group on how to use the monitoring logbooks and CEF tools

3. Monitoring

- The field worker holds individual follow-ups with farmers. He follows-up on each of their crops, their agricultural practices, and their data recording in their logbooks

4. Analysis of logbooks

- The field worker tallies the results and prepares positive and constructive feedback for each farmer

5. Conclusion and Evaluation of results

- The field worker holds individual sessions with each farmer to review the results of the year. Together, they review the information recorded in the logbook throughout the season and reflect on what went well, and what the farmer can improve.

- A session is held with each farmer group where the results of the season are shared with everyone, and farmers share best practices and challenges


P.S. When I first began learning about the CEF program I had a lot of questions. My goal through this entry was to give an introduction to the CEF program and what it aims to achieve, in doing so I left out a lot of details.

5 comments:

  1. I'm glad to see you're getting more access to means of communication. Don't hesitate to share your bicycle stories :)
    I'll huff and I'll puff as hard as I can to blow all the rain clouds from Quebec to Burkina (or all of West Africa, lets not discriminate)
    Talk to you soon
    A-M

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  2. Luigi, sono contento di questa tua esperienza! Qui dall'Italia ti salutiamo tutti e ti mandiamo un bacione! Comunque ho anche io un blog su blogspot e l'indirizzo è: http://www.frangianco.blogspot.com/
    adesso metto un link sul mio blog per il tuo blog così tutti quelli che mi seguono possono leggere le tue avventure!!
    Ciao lui!!

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  3. Ah mi sono dimenticato di dirti che sono Gianfranco, ma penso che lo hai capito già leggendo l'altro commento...lol

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  4. Hey Luigi,

    i have to say this was an excellent introduction to CEF. As I started reading your blog, questions kept on popping up, but as I continued reading, you kept on answering them!

    One question: CEF sounds good in theory, but how is it working in practice so far?

    Take care!

    Dan

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  5. Thanks for the blog! I watched that video, it was mostly a white-screen for the first minute though hahaha.

    Anyway, coming in a bit late, but for your next post I am voting for:
    -typical day & major challenges for farmers

    Talk to you very soon,

    Sonny

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