2025 donation: $50,000
Donations to date: $130,000
Our donations have enabled Andando to become a trusted source for trees in Senegal, operate over 41 women's cooperative gardens (impacting 25,000 people), empower 200 farmers through microloans and training, and create a community woodlot to provide firewood and stop deforestation. They have constructed a Tree Nursery and Agroforestry Center in Podor (including sinking a borehole to provide water security to the facility), germinated over 50,000 beneficial tree seedlings, and taught climate-smart agriculture practices to over 600 rural Senegalese farming families.
In Senegal, hundreds of years of destructive colonial agricultural practices have led to severe deforestation and loss of soil fertility. Andando combats this by constructing women's cooperative gardens, installing solar pumps for water generation, partnering with local farmers to incorporate native trees into field crop production, and reforesting lands using the forest garden permaculture method (intentionally placing plants to mimic the natural environment). The result: a reduction in water consumption, creation of fertile topsoil, and the installation of natural barriers (live thorny fences and windbreaks) that protect the land and sequester carbon.
With our continued donations, Andando will continue to restore approximately 1,633 hectares of land (4,000 acres), establish and protect roughly 75,000 trees, and reforest approximately 100 hectares with 40,000 trees produced in their regional nurseries. (These restored areas are projected to offset several thousand tons of carbon emissions annually, while also providing families with fruit to eat, shade to cool their homes, and fuel for fires.) In addition, Andando will protect over 15,000 naturally germinating trees by adding 100 new farmers to its microloan program in Keur Soce (bringing the total to 300), provide all participating farmers with climate smart training, and — since the past experience has shown these farmers become the biggest advocates for the new processes — ensure the loans continue to cycle through the community (the loans are a one-time investment, but once paid back, they are loaned out over and over again, meaning the 100 loans will support thousands of farmers long into the future).
2024 Donation: $50,000
Donations to Date: $80,000
Our donations allowed Andando to add 675 rural Senegalese farming families to their women’s cooperative gardening program, germinate over 15,000 beneficial tree seedlings, construct a Tree Nursery and Agroforestry Center in Podor (including sinking a borehole to provide water security to the facility), and teach climate-smart agriculture practices.
In Senegal, hundreds of years of destructive colonial agricultural practices have led to severe deforestation and loss of soil fertility. Andando combats this by constructing women’s cooperative gardens, installing solar pumps for water generation, partnering with local farmers to incorporate native trees into field crop production, and reforesting lands using the forest garden permaculture method (intentionally placing plants to mimic the natural environment). The result: a reduction in water consumption, fertile topsoil, and the installation of natural barriers (live thorny fences and windbreaks) that protect the land and sequester carbon.
On average, Andando’s 42 women's gardens yield 500,000 pounds of nutrient-dense, carbon-absorbing produce each year, and generate over $150,000 of profits (supporting 4,000 women and their families) without the use of any pesticides, herbicides, or synthetic fertilizers. In 2024, Andando added 367 families to their garden program, planted 30,243 beneficial tree saplings, contributed trees and support to Senegal’s National Tree Day, and completed improvements to the solar well system at their tree nursery and agroforestry center in Keur Soce.
With our continued donations, Andando will operate two native tree nurseries in the Kaolack and Podor regions (with plans to reforest 100,000 trees), add 400 families to their program in rural Senegal, fund 200 entrepreneurs through their microloan program, and pilot a reforestation project in the severely degraded pastoral lands of the Diery.
2023 donation: $30,000
Our donation helped Andando dramatically increase the food security of rural Senegalese farmers by adding 675 families to their women's cooperative gardening program, germinating over 15,000 beneficial tree seedlings, constructing a Tree Nursery and Agroforestry Center in Podor (including sinking a borehole to provide water security to the facility), and teaching climate-smart agriculture practices that offset the deforestation and loss of soil fertility due to hundreds of years of destructive colonial agricultural practices.
Like other partners in our program, Andando focuses on climate-smart farming. They construct women's cooperative gardens, use solar pumps for water generation, partner with local farmers to incorporate native trees into field crop production, and reforest land using the forest garden permaculture method (intentionally placing plants to mimic the natural environment).
In the last two years, Andando's 33 women's gardens have yielded over 1.5 million pounds of organic produce and generated a profit of over $400,000 for more than 3,500 women — without any pesticides, herbicides, or synthetic fertilizers. They have reduced their water consumption, created fertile topsoil, and created natural barriers (like thorny fences and windbreaks) that both protect the land and sequester carbon. Going forward, Andando will expand to more communities in rural Senegal adding 400 families to their program, operate two native tree nurseries in the Kaolack and Podor regions of Senegal, and start the process of reforesting 100,000 trees.
