April 18^th to the 24^th is National Volunteer Week in the United States which gives us all a chance to stop, reflect, and shine a light on the people and causes that inspire us to serve. As North America awakens to spring and the sense of a renewed optimism, what better time to take a moment and recognize the volunteers who share their time, talent, and treasure to build a more connected global community.

Over a year ago now, the world entered into a profoundly challenging, unforeseen, and tumultuous moment in time. The rise and eventual spread of COVID-19 across the globe profoundly impacted every nation, industry, and way of living. Many people have referred to 2020 as a “dark” or “lost” year. We cannot deny the immense struggle or burden felt by people from every walk of life. And yet, that truth only makes the efforts of Winrock’s volunteers during the past year that much more remarkable.

As airports around the world shut their doors, American volunteers did something amazing- they adapted and continued to support international communities. At Winrock International, technical expert volunteers, primarily through the USAID Farmer-to-Farmer (F2F) Program, raised their hands and offered their effort to find a new way to help those in need. Through the use of real-time video-conferencing technology and partnerships with local experts, American volunteers put proof to the quote that “all failure is failure to adapt, all success is successful adaptation.” Demonstrating a remarkable resilience and creativity in the face of difficulty, Winrock volunteers successfully blazed new pathways to connect and collaborate, directly improving the lives of thousands of individuals in rural communities across the world.

One such beneficiary, Mr. Karamo Fofana, a member of a community development group in Guinea, West Africa, noted that: Today, I am 1,000 kilometers from the capital where the Winrock training is being held, the American trainer is in the United States, his Guinean counterpart is in a room with a group in the capital, there are others are all over Guinea joining, learning, and participating; We work as if we were all together in the same room. Really, this is a first and an innovation for us. To this end, we are very grateful to Winrock Farmer-to-Farmer and the U.S. Government, which is sparing no effort to accompany us during this period of COVID19. Thanks to new technologies, we can be everywhere and work together”.

This week, we take a moment to stop and say thank you to the volunteers who brighten the world.  Despite the personal and professional setbacks, we all faced over the past year, so many have lifted their light and showed us that all challenge is really just a hidden opportunity.

Here are some of our volunteers in action over the past year. If you feel a calling to serve in a similar capacity, there are many opportunities listed at www.winrock.org/volunteer.

After 6 years at the helm of the Farmer-to-Farmer team in Senegal, our beloved Mama Toure retires today. 

Before she started with Winrock in June 2014, Mama became a member of the Africa Women Leaders in Agriculture and Environment (AWLAE) network that Winrock helped form and strengthen in the 1980s. She received her Master’s in International Agriculture Education from the University of Arizona and spent several years working for the Senegalese Ministry of Agriculture and for the Food and Agriculture Organization. Mama’s leadership and spirit has led one of our largest West Africa Farmer-to-Farmer (F2F) teams and she will be very much missed! Her work with volunteers and host organizations have helped shape the program in Senegal and left a lasting impact. During her tenure, she has overseen 124 volunteer assignments that dedicated 2,330 days to F2F. These volunteer assignments resulted in 7,936 hectares under improved technology, $2,130,983 in host income, and nearly 5,000 people trained! Mama retires to her farm where she keeps fruit trees, poultry, and livestock. A genuine, warm, and dedicated leader, Mama will truly be missed! 

I learned from Mama that working as a team makes you succeed and sharing responsibility makes the job easier. I miss her already! Patrick, Ndiame Sene, F2F driver, Senegal

Mama has been a role model to staff, program beneficiaries and our volunteers. I appreciate how much she believed in her team members and invested in building their capacity. DeAnn McGrew, Director of Global Programs

Mama has been a great colleague and we are sad to see her go. I hope she works as hard at relaxing as she did during her working life! Mike Bassey, Country Director F2F Nigeria

Her warm spirit, passion for the work we do, and keen expertise in the field will be sorely missed. Jennifer Robinson, F2F Recruiter

I will especially remember Mama taking me to her pride and joy – her farm. Her retirement is well deserved but sad for me. But I shall return to Senegal at some point in the future and look forward to seeing her then. Monica Norley, F2F Volunteer

Mama was so welcoming and helpful to me during my two volunteer assignments in Senegal. The staff under her direction took better care of me than I could have ever imagined. I could not have asked for a better country director and host. She invited me to her family’s celebration of Tabaski and it was like being a member of a wonderful family. She is a true professional and has provided tremendous service to her country through her work with Winrock. Something tells me there are a lot of volunteers that can share the same sentiments about Mama. Ples Spradley, F2F Volunteer

Mama is an open and friendly person who cares about others. I will miss her morning greetings and bright smile. Abibou Diaw, our new Country Director F2F Senegal

Mama with Winrock HQ team and her fellow Country Directors from Nigeria, Guinea, Nepal, Myanmar, and Bangladesh

I’m so grateful for Mama’s spirit, leadership, and care that she has put in to building the Senegal team. After so much hard work, I hope she enjoys her retirement – it is well deserved.
Jen Snow, F2F Program Director

“If our hopes of building a better and safer world are to become more than wishful thinking, we will need the engagement of volunteers more than ever.” — Kofi Annan

This quote from Kofi Annan really resonates, given everything that our world is facing these days. AND – it’s National Volunteer Week! Now, more than ever, I think we can all benefit from inspirational examples of American volunteers making an impact around the world.

In the last year, Winrock engaged 70 volunteers on assignments in nine countries, primarily through the USAID Farmer-to-Farmer (F2F) Program. These volunteers donated a collective 1,400 days of time to 59 host organizations, lending their skills and expertise on topics ranging from agricultural production and processing to curriculum development and pedagogy, to business planning and financial management. They have empowered farmers and entrepreneurs; strengthened training institutions and schools; improved quality, diversity, and safety of food products; and directly improved the lives of thousands of individuals in rural Africa and Asia.

This week, in particular, we celebrate these noble and meaningful efforts.

Here are some of our volunteers in action in the last year:

Volunteer, Dr. Hameed, shows off the mushroom pizza the Mushroom Producers Association made together in Ghana

Volunteer Kerry Richards and a local farmer practice plant transplanting in Guinea

Volunteer Gary Wingenbach visits demonstration plots and research project on the campus of Adeyemi College of Education in Nigeria

Volunteer Olumide Mitchelle Makanjuola poses with the women of AFSM and AWLAE in Mali after her workshop on building successful business practices

Volunteer Dr. Kassama works with CLCOP women to create enriched flour to sell in Senegal

In addition to imparting valuable – and oftentimes, critical – technical knowledge to enable people to improve their livelihoods, our volunteers also contribute to increased cross-cultural understanding, building a bridge between our countries and reinforcing human connections.

Many of our volunteers stay in touch with their host organizations and field staff after the end of their assignment. It’s been heartwarming to see an increase in this outreach during the coronavirus crisis, with volunteers and field staff reaching out to each other with concern and solidarity and to deepen the bonds that they formed over the course of their assignments. Especially now, these are such important reminders that we are all in this together.

THANK YOU, volunteers, for your generosity, kindness, hard work, expertise, and perseverance. You have made a difference, in more ways than one.

And though we are currently pausing international volunteer travel due to the global coronavirus pandemic, we are anxious to continue to serve our beneficiary communities around the world. We hope to resume travel later this year – and as always, open volunteer opportunities will be posted on our website: www.winrock.org/volunteer.

Greetings from our Farmer-to-Farmer team here in the USA! Our U.S.-based team is incredibly grateful for our dedicated country staff, skilled volunteers and welcoming program hosts across the globe, without whom our work providing solutions for some of the world’s most complex social, agricultural, and environmental issues would not be possible. Enjoy this account of an international team coming together, along with country hosts, to continue our path forward in achieving our mission. Thank you! 

In November 2019, Winrock International organized a Farmer-to-Farmer Regional Meeting to reflect on the past year of implementation and plan for the upcoming year. This meeting, which took place in Senegal, marked my first time traveling to West Africa, and the greater African continent. The opportunity to participate in this meeting came because I work alongside colleagues in both our West African offices as well as our stateside offices in planning for, recruiting, and mobilizing U.S. volunteers to bring technical assistance to projects across West Africa through the USAID Farmer-to-Farmer Program. Though I have been working on the project since January, this marked my first opportunity to begin meeting our country staff who work on the project.

In Senegal, we were joined by our entire Senegal team, as well as all our country directors from Ghana, Guinea, Mali, and Nigeria. As we came together to discuss successes, challenges, and plans for the coming year, we shared laughter, meals, and more about ourselves with each other. As we discussed the program, the key themes for working together were flexibility, communication, and partnership. While this project is international, the same themes that make work successful on a local scale are also the keys to working with an international team. Having extensive time face to face with the country staff made all the difference in helping to more clearly understand their daily context on the ground in the countries we are working in. It also helped to build relationships with my colleagues – as being face to face for a week provides opportunities weekly or biweekly meetings by phone or video do not. Our week together in Senegal was full of learning – both in sessions in a meeting room and in field visits with hosts we have and continue to work with. In our meetings together we had sessions led by each of us that ranged from growing local partnerships to increasing our recruitment of experts as volunteers. During our field visits, we learned how our host organizations have grown and adapted their work as a result of volunteer assignments and recommendations and learned about continuing needs to be addressed by future volunteers. We visited several vocational training centers in Guinea that utilize our volunteers to train their staff and students, but more widely to increase technical knowledge and skills for their communities as a whole.

Following my time in Senegal, I traveled to Guinea with my colleague from the National Peace Corps Association, a sub-awardee under Winrock’s Farmer-to-Farmer project, and we spent 4 days with the Guinea office planning for the year, building relationships, and visiting hosts. Returning home and reflecting on my time in West Africa I am grateful for the hospitality of our country staff in both Senegal and Guinea, as well as our hosts who we visited in both countries. I am grateful to have better relationships with country staff, as well as more context for on the ground logistics in West Africa, which will help me to be a better recruiter and mobilizer for U.S. volunteers to assist with projects across West Africa as part of the program. I am excited for what the year ahead holds.

The fourth in our series of introductory blogs again comes from Senegal, which has the largest number of Winrock F2F staff in-country. 

My name is Youssouph Sane and I’m one of the Winrock Drivers. After I earned a Baccalaureate degree I joined the Army for two years where I got my military driving license which afterward turned it to a civil driving license.

I then worked for security companies like Phoenix and Sagam. For Sagam, I was posted as a vigil in a bank. After work, I used to volunteer as a driving school instructor for one year and a half. I was inspired when English people who came to the bank needed help and I struggled to give them information with my low-level English. So I started English classes for four hours a week. It was not enough for me but it was fine. After 4 years I got a promotion as a driver in the Sagam security company so I  stopped English classes. It was an opportunity and an experience for me to become familiar with Senegalese traffic regulations and I realized really how hard it is to drive in a big city like Dakar for more than eight hours a day or at night without stopping. One day, as I was passing by Winrock’s office I saw the Winrock sign and thought to apply for a job; so I did and was called for an interview. A couple of weeks later I got the job.

My favorite pastimes are exercising; watching soccer and movies on tv; being with my lovely daughters and conversing with people.

Working for an American company was my dream because of their hardworking attitude, seriousness, and pay. It is also an opportunity to improve my English.

I have learned a lot from F2F volunteers about pruning, making compost, and constructing drip irrigation from local material but I haven’t applied any of the volunteers’ technique so far because I have yet to have the opportunity. Volunteers helped me a lot because being with them pushes me to practice English and now I know many things about American culture.

Pick up/drop off, assisting for the volunteers and supporting the staff are the most interesting parts of my job.

Once there was a volunteer who didn’t find her luggage when she arrived at Dakar’s airport. So we canceled the trip for the next day; therefore, she stayed in Dakar longer than planned. In order to catch up and not change her training agenda, we had to make the return trip in one day, therefore, we traveled the whole day from Kolda to Dakar (a 7-10 hour car ride) and it was very tough journey because of the distance.

Senegal Team