It started with a conversation among members of a women’s
farming group in Affe Tidiane, a small village in the Kaolack
region of central Senegal. “The leader of the women’s group said
we should have a meeting and ask everyone what they wanted to
do,” says Helen Fallat, a Peace Corps volunteer working in the
village in 2007 and 2008. “I thought that sounded simple
enough.” But the challenges that the community was facing were
anything but simple. Like much of the rest of western Africa,
Affe Tidiane is experiencing increasing periods of drought and
water scarcity. Dependence on a few staple crops such as millet
and peanuts, combined with a lack of access to markets and
reduced wholesale prices, pressures the men to leave the village
for much of the year to try to earn money in nearby towns and
cities. Women are left at home to take care of the children and
figure out how to feed everyone. While men are focused on
earning an annual income, says Fallat, “the women are thinking
about what is going in the bowl fo