“Mama, mama, sa-la-ta!”

A two-year-old in an oversized T-shirt runs up to a young woman who is harvesting parsley. She proudly shows off the picked leaves in a small bundle.

A bed of celery, lettuce, onions. A meal with loved ones, sunshine and the simple joy of life. What we associate with relaxing in May has recently become a daily occurrence in the Gourcy garden. It wasn’t always like this. Gourcy remembers the days when the earth bore only dust and the clay subsoil cracked underfoot like porcelain. Days when everything was in short supply.

Today, the garden has working wells funded by you, which allow the garden to grow green with vegetables and herbs. The garden not only feeds the families who work here, but also develops local trade. Tons of onions are now drying in the warehouse, waiting to be sold. The sale of the harvest allows us to buy new, experimental vegetable seeds and better gardening equipment. The garden is slowly becoming self-sustaining.

We are now building a fourth borehole, which will help relieve the pressure on the previous three and become a necessary backup for the garden. The water sources, over-exploited, are drying up rapidly here.

The alternative? Walking for hours to fetch water from an intake that poses a risk to health and life, especially for the youngest gardeners, a few years old, whose immunity is just developing.

It doesn’t take much to have an impact. The equivalent of two packs of water will ensure that Celine does not have to wander for hours in search of a contaminated source. It will allow forty families to stay in the place they call Home. By the land that feeds them, nurtures them, gives them a decent life. Their hard-working hands appreciate every piece of parsley and every leaf that grows under the hot sun of Gourcy.

Construct with us another metre of the well in the vegetable garden and watch the good you donate grow!