Empowering Communities Through Agriculture

Tractor ploughing on the field to help women prepared their rice and corn fields.

The Masimbo women Farmers Association (MWFA) is organized to help young ladies that drop out of school to learn trades for income generation, while the few that are not educated will focus on subsistence farming as their career. At Present, the MWFA is embarking on income generation activities like local soap making using caustic soda and locally produce nut oil, Gara tie dying for coloring white cloths in different styles to attract market, and some little form of Tailoring. Agriculture is the main activities for food production

Men are losing Rice Bundles on the Tarpoline that are Harvested from the Field for Threshing.

Masimbo Agricultural Community Development Programme (M.A.C.De.P) is non-governmental, nonpolitical, and a non-profit, Community based organization formed by the Community of Patebana Masimbo. The community comprised of seven village in the Bombali - shebora and Makari - Gbanthi chiefdoms in the Bombali district, northern province of Sierra Leone. The villages are Patebana Masimbo, Romankneh Mathaineh, Mabureh, Makapri 1&2, Mayorba, Matak and Makama respectively. These villages had common ideas together and work things collectively. That is the reason they form the organization.

School children Garthered with their Teachers at BDEC primary School at Patebana Masimbo Village.

AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION
The population is growing, especially in developing countries like Sierra Leone, and global food demand is increasing as a result, for children to engage in Agriculture and understand it as part of their life where they can build and develop their skills and abilities to improve their future, it is necessary to continue their exposure to agricultural techniques and skills throughout their education
The need for an agricultural secondary school in the Masimbo community is highly important. One of the most important fact about the community is that school system in Sierra Leone often focus little/no teaching Agriculture in Secondary level to maximize the opportunities that are available to their own communities; rather, they tend to prioritize a set of skills that is less applicable to village

Spreading Rice on Tarpoline for Drying (No Drying Floor)

Post-harvest operations can also become a bottleneck in the crop production cycle. The Construction of drying floors is highly necessary to avoid a mixture of stones, sand and other impurities in the rice. That will add value to the rice prepared for consumption.

Women Farming Activities

Access to financial resources such as credit is linked to women’s access to property like land, education and information. Restricted ownership of land impedes women from obtaining guarantees that would enable them to secure access to credit from formal financial institution. To overcome these problems, Masimbo women like other village’s device the means of organizing “Osusu” as a form of contributions for savings.

Bushels of seed Rice distributed to project farmers for Swamp cultivation.

The project secured bushels of seed rice and distributed to their farmers in the form of loan revolving scheme for swamp cultivation. After harvesting and processing of swamp rice, the project shall recovered the loans with a small interest of 1/4 bushel of rice. The 1/4 interest will be a suplement to add farmers for next yearly season.