Monday, March 21, 2011

Send Seeds for Food

... to help people in Algerian refugee camps and in South India seeding fruits and vegetables for their own food needs.

This UN-project "Seeds for Food" has been created in 2005 by the Belgian Prof. Dr. Willem van Cotthem. Initially, there was a project where refugees (mainly nomads and fishermen) in Algerian refugee camps in the Sahara desert had been taught in making small gardens with the means given to plant fruits and vegetables to feed their families. There had been found techniques to save enough of the rare water for the seeding.

Today, in addition to the named project for the refugees in Algeria who mainly live since more than 30 years in this camps, the project "Seeds for Food" also supports people from the social organization SCAD in the South Indian region Tamil Nadu with seeds.

But the only problem is: Seeds are in general too expensive for this people. So the fundraising campaign "Seeds for Food" has been initiated. They don't ask for money - they ask for seeds so this people could plant them to grow their fresh natural food.

Now in the spring and summer season (from March until August) especially seeds for tropical fruits - like bell peppers, avocados, papayas, melons, pumpkins and eggplants - are required.
In autumn and winter (from September to February) indeed there is the time for vegetables, for example salad, carrots, onions, beetroots and parsleys.

To prepare the seeds you have for shipping, separate them - like you regularly always do it when preparing them for eating - first from the fruit or vegetables, lay them on a dish to let them dry, and then push them in an envelope on which you have indicated the name of the fruit or vegetable seeds. Finally send them to the address on the homepage of the project (see the link above). You can also collect the seeds with others and then send them all together to eventually save shipping costs.

This shows that everyone can act with his or her own means to help to fight the hunger in the world. Do you know other projects like this? So you can state them in a comment if you like it to become more common.

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