Tree Aid - Supporting women and mothers in Mali

In Support of Women and Mothers in Mali

TREE AID supports women in the drylands of Africa using the power of trees to grow food to feed their children and earn an income. Trees are a lifeline - they provide nutritious food, a way to generate an income from their fruits, nuts and leaves, and they improve the fragile environment so that communities can build barriers against climate change.

TREE AID provides women with trees to grow and protect, and with the training and tools they need to turn tree products into nutritious food and goods to sell at the market, such as shea butter.

“Without trees, we wouldn’t eat”

Breaking the cycle of poverty

When women have access to food and a stable income, they can send their children to school and help lift others in their community out of poverty. What’s more, when they learn how to grow trees to protect their fragile environment, the effects of this are felt for generations to come.

TREE AID successfully set up women’s cooperatives in West Africa to support women like Setou. With the right tools and training, members’ income from the fruits, nuts and seeds grown on trees has increased by up to 75%.

Setou wants to work her way out of poverty. Trees can help her do this.

Mali is not an easy place to be a woman, or a mother. It is one of the world’s poorest countries. Due to gender inequality, women across the country are affected most by climate change and extreme poverty.

Women have less access to healthcare, education and jobs. They depend on the land for survival but deforestation and frequent droughts are making this even harder. With little food to feed their children and no way of earning an income, women are facing a struggle for survival every day.

Here, in a village named Bouanidjé, is where Setou lives with her family.

Setou works hard; she does everything for her family. Getting up at 5am, she cooks all the meals, grinds millet and cleans the house. She then walks miles to deliver lunch to her husband and children as they farm crops on the land. She stays to help farm, and on her long walk home she carries heavy firewood, preparing to cook the next meal. But it’s getting harder to find the food and fuel to cook, and It’s getting harder to survive.

Setou wants a different life for her children. “I didn’t go to school. I think it ruined my entire life. I am sure I wouldn’t have been who I am. Agriculture is all we do, and we are entirely dependent on the rain. If I had gone to school, I could have more ways to earn money and support my family.”

Women like Setou are heavily reliant on natural resources for their livelihoods, and sometimes for their survival: “Trees are vital, especially for us women. Without trees, we wouldn’t eat. The produce from the fields has reduced. Farming doesn’t feed us anymore, the sources of income are weak. I am worried for my children.”

The solution? It is a simple as a tree

You can help Setou in Mali to grow her way out of poverty with the training and tools to make money from trees. TREE AID’s She Grows project will work with 1,000 women in Setou’s community to plant 5,000 trees, give them access to a forest and set up  and train enterprise groups to make shea butter and honey.

Donate to the She Grows appeal before 30th June 2019 and the UK government will double all donations from the UK public. Visit the TREE AID website to donate and find out more: www.treeaid.org.uk/shegrows.