Nutrition and business go hand in hand in Kolda, Senegal / April 2019
Looking around Suleiman’s green and thriving vegetable garden, it is hard to believe that the father of four from Kolda, Senegal, used to spend up to 6 months at a time away from his home and family, working as a farm labourer just to be able to afford to buy a fraction of the food he now grows himself. “Every evening that I was away, I would think about my family,” says Suleiman. “They would have to wait for me to come back with my earnings so that they could eat, or borrow money or food from neighbours. We could afford mostly rice and leaves, there was not many vegetables here,” he says.
PINKK fosters young female leaders in Senegal / May 2019
At just 16 years of age, Amy Mandiang’s ambition is to become a doctor, and her hard work at school and as a volunteer ‘nutrition champion’ in her community are helping to pave the way towards attaining her bright future. Amy is a member of the Young Girl Leader Clubs in Kolda, Senegal, an initiative supported by the PINKK project to both empower young women and instil good nutrition and hygiene practices in the area. Since its inception in December 2015, the project has worked to improve nutritional and health security in Kolda, an area which has suffered from one of the highest food-insecurity rates in the country.
PINKK creates a circle of care for mothers and children in Senegal / June 2019
In the dusty heat of the midday sun, a group of women gathers in the shade in Kolda, southern Senegal. The reason for their meeting is held in their hands - each one carries a healthy newborn child, shrouded in a rainbow of colourful fabrics with only their sleeping faces visible. “We are waiting for Coumba!” they inform us happily. Coumba Diassy is a community health volunteer, designated by the villagers to teach, assist and monitor the health of new mothers and babies as part of the PINKK project - a ground-breaking initiative to scale up nutrition, strengthen local health systems, and support income generation in some of Senegal’s most vulnerable communities, particularly women and children.