Salzburg helps in East Africa: When barren soil sprout again
It’s stories like Zena’s that touch you. She used to live with her children in a poor hut. Thanks to the new opportunities in agriculture, they were able to build a better life for themselves. Or Joseph, a small farmer in a mountain village. Since the potato plants are thriving, he has better prospects.
They are at home in East Africa, in the Morogoro region (Tanzania). Around 80 percent of the people here live from small-scale agriculture. A harder everyday life is normal for them. And yet global crises have exacerbated the situation in Tanzania: “First there was climate change,” says Jane Maro from the development organization SAT (see info box) during her visit to Salzburg. With her husband, an Austrian, she started agricultural training in 2009.
Fighting drought with know-how from organic farming
Because less and less rain falls in a dry area, the farmers can hardly cultivate the soil. The corona pandemic and now the Ukraine war continue to turn the spiral of need: supply chains were interrupted, fertilizer prices rose immeasurably. Thanks to Janet Maro and her team, farmers are now learning how to make auto-organic fertilizer.
And the farmers also learn how soils can be replanted with robust seeds. They create terraces to stop soil erosion. All this reduces dependency on the import. More and more what is harvested, such as millet or cassava, is put on the plate again. The high fuel prices make matters worse: even the journeys of the helpers, who drive to the fields on motorcycles, have become significantly more expensive.
Salzburg organization helps in Africa
“Be so free”, an organization of the Archdiocese of Salzburg, has been helping in all countries such as Malawi, Ethiopia and Tanzania for many years. Other initiatives from the church environment strengthen the perspectives of that contingent, of which hundreds of thousands are constantly making their way towards Europe. October, World Mission Month, focused on Congo.
In Salzburg, Sister Justicia of the Order of the Good Shepherd describes how she fights against child labor and violence against women in cobalt mines – the raw material for cell phone and laptop batteries is selling like hot cakes. “We’re trying to give them an alternative,” she says of conditions with ongoing human rights violations.