action five e.V. Bonn

Vegetable garden in Baga, Mali

This project, supported by action five, to run a women's cooperative in Baga, a village in southern Mali, has been underway since October 2006.  The 95 women in the cooperative are to plant and cultivate a four-hectare vegetable garden together. In the first three months since the project began, five new wells were built. Delays were caused to the construction work when those building the wells came upon hard rock five metres down. However, the problem has now been solved, and all five wells are virtually complete. They have a very large diameter and a depth of 15 metres. The women's cooperative received funding from the local council for a wire-mesh fence to protect the cultivated area from animals. In February, the fence was erected and the plots laid out. To ensure no loss of harvest, the women have already planted nurseries in their homes and will plant the young shoots directly into their plots once construction of the fence is complete.