The Climate Resilient Communities (CRC) Programme is a new programme, expanding on legacy support for small scale agriculture and is likely to expand significantly by 2030. The Programme recognizes that impoverished rural communities live at the “coal face” of climate change, being directly affected by increased variability in temperature and rainfall. The Programme has focus on food and water security and is currently building momentum. Africa Foundation and &Beyond are focused on supporting the establishment of food gardens across all the Early Childhood Development, Home Based Care and Disability centers currently being supported. In time this will be extended to the Primary and Secondary Schools supported through the Echo programme.
With increasingly erratic rainfall patterns and rising temperatures the new normal, climate change is a growing reality for the 73 rural communities across Africa that we are working with. “Climate models predict that climate change will lead to warmer temperatures, increasing rainfall variability, and increasing severity and frequency of extreme weather events” (Thorlakson and Neufeldt, 2012). Climate change is clearly a significant challenge for all our community partners and so we are actively pursuing projects that will improve the ability of these communities to respond to the changes that they are being faced with. Interventions like localised climate-wise agriculture, small-scale water harvesting hold the key to climate-resilient communities.
The CRC programme has a core focus around United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 13 – Climate Action. SDG 13 has a key focus to take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts.
The Lake Manyara Agroecology Project is focused on the Mayoka and Moya communities, in the Babati District, northern Tanzania. These are isolated rural communities, neighbouring on Lake Manyara to the east, the Lake Manyara National Park to the north and Marang Forest Reserve to the west – see map.
Africa Foundation has worked with the two communities for over a decade, with a legacy emphasis on supporting the two communities with their primary needs, specifically, improved primary health care, and early, primary and secondary education. Key projects include: Provision of doctor and nurses’ accommodation at Mayoka Clinic. The expansion of Mayoka and Moya Primary Schools. The establishment and ongoing expansion of Tara Getty Secondary School. In addition, Africa Foundation has provided 76 University bursaries for local scholars and supported a bush encroachment control partnership between TANAPA and the Mayoka community.
The development of local entrepreneurial potential is the next priority for these two communities, with emphasis on unlocking their agricultural potential. Climate wise food gardens will be established, providing invaluable working models for future expansion. Specific crops will be selected, and seedlings purchased to provide balanced nutritional value. Planting and maintaining a food garden would be quite impossible without a reliable water supply. Where needed, boreholes would be repaired or drilled, fresh water access points created and Hippo Water Rollers provided to enable the easy collection, transport and storage of clean water.
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