In rural communities …
like Sika Village, women grow crops to feed their families and supplement their meager incomes. They are able to do this by practicing “seasonal vegetable gardening.” Rice fields are used during the dry season, however, during the rainy season those fields are used by the land owners for rice cultivation.
A donation of 6 hectares (14.8 acres) of land was made to the women of the village to use as a community garden and the Aurora Gateway Rotary Club is sponsoring the development of the donated land into a permanent year-round, efficient and modern, drip-irrigation garden.
In The Gambia, the Banjul Rotary Club and a non-profit organization, The Sika Development Fund, have both agreed to be partners with Aurora Gateway Rotary in this project. The proposed garden will have boreholes, water tanks, appropriate garden equipment to help reduce manual work in addition to a proper Project Management Team comprised of community women and advisers.
The Gambia is the smallest country on the African Continental, about 4,400 square miles, but one of the most densely populated countries, with an estimated population of 2.5 million. The per capita income per annum is about $760.00.