Burkina Faso Garden Project Celebrates One Year of Transforming Lives
Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso - Lush vegetable plants surrounded Rosalie. This widowed
mother of three looked at her budding plants and basket of harvested produce with amazement.
She was so thankful for Operation Blessing’s garden project. In a little over a
year her shattered world had begun to make sense again.
Rosalie peered over at the fresh water well and up at the water tower in appreciation.
Two-mile walks to the nearest water source ended in November 2003 when a team from Operation
Blessing built two fresh water wells and a water tower for her community of 1,700.
Two months later, forty impoverished women began learning how to plant and cultivate
individual plots of land. Utilizing the water, fertilizer, vegetable seeds and determination,
they made the once dry soil into fertile ground. Now sixty-four participants come every
day and work the land throughout the year. Their labor provides food and income for
their families.
Nwadiuko is another one of these hardworking women. This older woman is alone in the
world. Her husband died years ago and the couple did not have children. She is too old
to find work and without the garden would be struggling to survive on her own. In addition
to meeting her physical needs, this experience has also brought a support network of
friends into her life.
Other women include Saada and Abebi. Saada is a 29-year-old divorcee from Cote d’Ivoire
who fled to Burkina Faso due to the violence in her homeland. The garden has given her
an income and a means of survival until she is able to return home. Abebi, not yet 30
years old, left years of prostitution to work the land and began cultivating her life
into something beautiful.
Be a Part of the Harvest
This garden venture is one of many Operation Blessing micro-enterprise projects touching
lives around the world. Families in South America are receiving enough livestock to
be able to begin a profitable farm. Asian and African women are learning to become seamstresses.
Unemployed fathers and mothers in the USA are moving from welfare to the workforce through
our 12-week Life Skills Empowerment program. You can be a part of helping those with
a desire to work, but don’t have the resources or knowledge of how to begin.
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