2024–25 Report: Andando

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).