Archive

  1. NILE Journeys

    Comments Off on NILE Journeys

    NILE Journeys was established in 2016 as a platform for Nile communities. Its work unfolds through community hubs across Nile Basin countries. There are currently eight hubs, and they are expanding.

    Communities across the Nile Basin suffer inequalities and limitations in their natural, human, or technological well-being, which renders them vulnerable to climate change and its effects. The word NILE refers not only to the Nile’s energetic field of the majestic river but also serves as an acronym for what the platform aims to do “Nurturing Impulses for Living Ecosystems”.

    The NILE Journeys vision is to nurture life-affirming actions in the Nile bio-region through participatory and experiential learning spaces rooted in indigenous knowledge and regenerative practices.

    NILE Journeys has so far:

    • Engaged more than 97,000 people
    • Provided direct support to eight Community Hubs
    • Established three dialogue spaces
    • Established three agroecology demonstration sites
    • Set up a library
    • Co-established a restaurant in a rural co-working space
    • Co-established a moringa oil press unit
    • Sponsored the education of 83 children
    • Sustainably regenerated 168 hectares
    • Trained 35 community leaders on dialogue facilitation

    The NILE journeys’ goal for 2026 is to become a model of trans-local collaboration in the Nile basin with regenerative practices that can be replicated in other fields and other parts of the basin.

  2. Food Secured Schools Africa

    Comments Off on Food Secured Schools Africa

    Food Secured Schools Africa (FSSA) is a social enterprise set up in Ethiopia in 2018. Since then it has tested school gardens run in an entrepreneurial model. Instead of handing over aid or charitable giving that is typical for the NGO approach, FSSA looks at people and resources and makes the best of them.

    FSSA offers technical support and seedlings to low-income parents who access the unused land of the schools to produce chemical-free vegetables and fruits. Their work becomes a source of income for the parents and a source of fresh and nutritious food for the children enrolled in education programs.

    The parents generate income by selling mainly through the School Feeding Program (a governmental initiative to keep disadvantaged children in the education system), but their yield may also be used for their own subsistence, which became very relevant during the Covid-19 crisis.

    In two years FSSA has achieved the set-up and the sustainable management of nine school gardens, located in Addis Ababa and Oromia Region, Ethiopia, involving over 300 parents who were able to produce up to 30 tonnes of vegetables per hectare of land.

  3. Uryadi’s Village

    Comments Off on Uryadi’s Village

    Uryadi’s Village (UV) was established in 2014 in response to a request from the local leadership in Soddo, Ethiopia, to help them address the growing number of orphaned and abandoned children in their area.

    It became clear that the degradation of Ethiopia’s land was linked to widespread food access issues, and that this was linked with the high orphan population. (Newborns were abandoned because their parents could not feed them.)

    UV agreed to co-develop a sustainable approach to this challenge. A community based on Permaculture principles has been created, guided by the vision of a beautiful, productive home for orphaned and abandoned children, which also strengthens the community and is a source of innovative progress and abundance.

    UV cares for 97 orphaned children and supports the education of another 95 in the local community who have families but would not stay in school without some financial help. 

    It is working with the local government to scale up a local adoption program and is one of the only orphanages around to accept special-needs children. It is also developing support systems and tools for parents of children with special needs to avoid abandonment in the first place.