For three decades, Bread and Water for Africa® has been providing assistance to thousands of impoverished small-holder farmers trying to eke out not just a living – but a life – on their tiny plots of land in numerous countries in sub-Saharan Africa including Cameroon, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Sierra Leone, Uganda and Zambia.

In the past year, to help alleviate the financial and economic repercussions of thousands brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic in Sierra Leone, working with our partner there, Rural Youth Development Organization-SL, thanks to our supporters we were able to implement a new coronavirus relief program for women and youth.

Through the program, 75 women and young adults were trained how to grow vegetables and other crops, provided with essential farming tools and supported in establishing small business enterprises such as food sales and other related small businesses based on local demands.

The impact of that single program is far reaching with the number of individuals estimated by RYDO-SL program manager Joseph Kobba to have benefited directly or indirectly to be 19,000.

Among them is 28-year-old Alusine Kamanda who had to drop out of secondary school because there was no one to pay his school fees following the death of both his parents during the Ebola virus outbreak in the country in 2014-2015. Knowing of his struggles, Alusine was contacted by RYDO-SL staff in their efforts to register vulnerable youths for the Bread and Water for Africa® COVID-19 support program.

Another is 25-year-old mother Jebbeh Kamara who was able to establish a successful groundnut (peanut) farm to generate income and support her family by selling the roasted nuts at the local village market.

A third is Joseph Kamanda, a young man who is growing cassava and rice (the staple foods of the country) to feed his mother and father as their only surviving child who had to suspend his education because there was no one else to care for them.

When informed that he would be receiving support from the Bread and Water for Africa®COVID-19 Relief Program, he told Joseph that he felt it was “God sent…I had planned to cultivate a vegetable and cassava farm, but I didn’t have the tools.”

Thanks to the training and support he received, “My harvest was so impressive that it led me to cultivate even more land this year…this opportunity has made me to be economically self-sufficient.”

And as for the other “Joseph,” the RYDO-SL program manager, he wants our supporters who helped make the program possible and transform the lives of Alusine, Jebbeh and Joseph and the many others:

“The COVID-19 Relief Program initiated by Bread and Water for Africa® through RYDO-SL is an investment in both human and community, empowers other vulnerable groups such as the women, children, sick and old, because the food they are producing is serving everyone in their community.”