The Savory Institute had the pleasure to work with Heifer International in a design workshop in Linguere, Senegal. Linguere is about eight hours outside of Dakar. We worked in a community about 50kms outside of the city. In a community whose livelihood is based mainly on livestock, the village chiefs, elders, and local leaders have begun working with Heifer International to design contextually relevant solutions that would address some of the communities biggest problems. Together, with a team of about 10 Heifer personnel and other strategic collaborators, Savory worked with the community leaders to experiment with different potential solutions to addressing health, food, water and land issues. The majority of the participants in the workshop were local women.
The Savory Institute presented the benefits of using Holistic Management as a solution for food, land and water issues. The degradation of land and the scarcity of water has created new challenges for the community concerning dying livestock and poor water supply. Other participants presented ideas concerning alternative food supplies for livestock, biochar for soil regeneration, and biofuels for heating and cooking. There were about six presentations from the invited parties as well as local training for how to design a sustainable solution in the community.
There was a lot accomplished in a very short period of time. Savory is excited about the opportunity to participate in this community as well as the consideration for impacting western Africa and the Sahel region. We believe that through these kinds of strategic collaborations and local Hubs, the Savory Institute will continue its progress towards impacting one billion hectares of land by 2025.
