Lotus Village Project - Compassionate Aid Through Direct Action

Home | Projects | How You Can Help

Project:
West Africa Famine Relief

Project Number: WAFR
Project Location: Upper East Region, Ghana
Start Date: August 2007
End Date: August 31, 2008 - Closed

In the spring and summer of 2007, the northern Sahel region of Ghana experienced a severe drought. This is the only farming season of the year for the subsistence farming communities of this area. They do not have any form of irrigation, and rely 100% on the rains to nourish their staple crops of millet and ground nuts.

When the rains finally arrived in August and September 2007, they received more rain in a few weeks than they had received in the previous 10 years combined!

This resulted in widespread flooding and devastation in the region. In fact, the flooding was so severe that government estimates showed more than 275,000 people affected in northern Ghana, more than all other West African countries combined!

The combination of drought and flooding has created a very serious humanitarian situation. As subsistence farming villagers, they rely nearly entirely on what they grow to sustain themselves through the long dry season, locally known as “the hungry season.” With most of their food crops, food stores and houses destroyed, and livestock washed away; they are simply unable to support themselves without help.

This region is the poorest and most neglected part of Ghana. Many of the villages are not on any road system and lack modern telecommunications. Populations are scattered across the Sahel, often connected only by walking paths, and news is passed through word-of-mouth. The famine has affected most of the remote villages in the northern region, yet most residents that we interviewed had not seen any aid from local government agencies or international aid groups! Because of the scale of the problem, and the many logistical hurdles involved; the few organizations even addressing this disaster have concentrated their

relief efforts in the larger villages and towns on the road system. Rumors of food aid in these towns have caused many tragic instances where desperate villagers walk long distances in the hopes of receiving some assistance. Often they were awarded with a mere handful of millet for their efforts, if they managed to receive anything at all. Meanwhile, villagers situated more than a long day’s walk from a larger town were left completely isolated with their great need.

Lotus Village Project volunteers from the famine hit area alerted us to these disastrous problems of distribution and organization, and we were confidant we could get a truck to go off-road to some of the more remote areas. We chose five geographically distinct sub-regions to concentrate on, and have been successfully bringing food to each of these regions every month since September! Hands-on distribution has been very effective during the famine, and LVP volunteers have physically distributed food rations to the remotest villages. We continually monitor the situation with our volunteer staff in the region and still have not heard of any large scale aid reaching the villagers in remote areas – where most of them live.

The goal of Lotus Village Project is to supply as many villages as possible with enough of their staple grain; millet, to help them survive until the next farming season. Our goal is "preventative intervention," preventing starvation before it happens. We have supplied over 10 tons of food aid since September 2007 and will keep supplying monthly shipments of millet until fall of 2008. During the farming season we will supplement food aid with "seed aid," buying the Fra Fra villagers millet, maize and ground nut seeds to help them get food into the ground. To date, our food aid project has reached over 10,000 villagers. Because of our strong infrastructure in place utilizing local Fra Fra volunteers, this project is our largest accomplishment to date and one we desperately need more funding to continue.