Niger: A Crash Course Via Documentary Film

This documentary was produced by Daniel Balluff in 2005. The actual film is 29 minutes long; here you can watch the first five minutes or so, exploring some of the land and hearing some of the music.

More About Niger: Introducing the Eden Foundation and Esther Garvi

If you read Monday's post about Niger (Learning About Niger) and watched the documentary, you saw a bit of the Garvi family. Josef Garvi is the coordinator of the Eden Foundation, which "has been working with hundreds of farmers in one of Niger’s most arid zones to disprove the reigning logic that the desert is a tough place to nurture plant- and human- life..." He says that nature has abundant answers to Niger’s perennial food insecurity problems, but "people are not looking close enough. They look for quick answers, handouts from international aid agencies, big expensive hard-to-maintain irrigation projects, or programmes that help politicians look good, but do little to help farmers.” These quotes come from the report, Niger; Fighting Hunger One Tree at a Time (from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs).

The Eden Foundation was founded in 1985 in Sweden, and has been active in Tanout, Niger since 1987. Their website states the aim of their project in Tanout as "helping the farmers and their families achieve a sustainable life with the means available to them." Their solution is "to bring them trees and bushes that can grow naturally in this dry area and give food, even in times of need."

You can watch a slideshow by the Foundation, entitled Life in Tanout.

To meet another member of the Garvi family, please go to the delightful blog, Esther Garvi aka Ishtar News. Here you will learn all about life in Niger, and you can ask questions, too. This is what Esther has to say about herself: Born in Sweden, but came to Niger at the age of six. Still around. Am the greatest Niger fan you can find and cannot think of a better way to live my life than working for Eden Foundation in the Tanout zone. This blog is about living life as an unpaid volunteer and trying to make the best out of every day (sometimes possible, sometimes not) while helping the people of the least developed area of the least developed country in the world achieve a sustainable life.

Learning About Niger

Here is something a little different for this blog. Perhaps I am more affected by the beginning of school than I realize, but I find myself wanting to learn about a new subject: The countries of Africa.

Naturally, I will share what I learn with you. Today's post is an introduction to the country of Niger, one of the poorest and least developed countries in the world. It is located in western Africa, southeast of Algeria, and is slightly less than twice the size of the state of Texas. It is desert land--over 80% is part of the Sahara--and is one of the hottest countries in the world, subject to recurring droughts. (Information from The CIA World Fact Book).

The following documentary is about a purported famine in Niger in 2005. According to its YouTube commentary: "The Famine Scam" [below] is a controversial documentary which has won several awards, and was awarded third prize in the Monte Carlo TV festival in June 2008.

The film, which is the work of a Norwegian research/photography team, discusses the media portrayal of crisis in an African country versus the reality as understood by those who live there. It brings up a number of complex issues regarding western perceptions of African culture, and the consequences of food aid from foreign countries. What happens if free food is distributed when it is time to sow the crops that will insure future food supplies? What happens to the local economy when there is a glut of free food on the market?

What does “food racism” mean?

A quote from a Niger agricultural worker in the film: “They come here without knowing us, without understanding our problems.”

Part 1 of the film begins here. At the end of each part you will be directed to the next section.