Ever wondered who is actually digging all those bunds? Meet our diggers!
We dig bunds in the dry seasons.
In this period, a group of community members works hard in restoring their own dry and degraded land by digging bunds. In total, they dig thousands of bunds in the area to make the area green and cool again. Let us tell you a little more about them and what a typical day of digging bunds looks like.
Every digging day, early in the morning the community members walk to the project area. They all live close by, so they can reach the area easily by foot. Curious what this trip looks like? See it here.
Once they have arrived in the area, the community will start digging new bunds.
Before the digging starts, a fundi (supervisor within the project) draws the contours of each bund on the ground using spirit levels. This way the bunds are dug at the perfect spot and will catch as much water as possible. And then the real job starts: the digging of bunds!
Every day, each member digs around 7 semi-circular bunds of 5 meters wide, 2.5 meters long, and 0.5 meters deep. Imagine how many meters that is on a daily basis! Curious what the process of digging a bund looks like? Watch the timelapse.
Sometimes, nature needs a helping hand to become lush and green again. That’s why the diggers occasionally sow grass seeds within the newly dug bunds. As soon as the bunds capture rainwater, the seeds start to sprout and the regreening begins. These new grasses are resilient, ensuring that the area remains green.
Fun fact: we purchase these grass seeds from the Maasai women groups that run our grass seed bank projects in Kenya.
After the bunds have been dug and the grass seeds are sown, they are ready to be captured on camera: Fundis (supervisors) take a picture of every single bund in the project area and upload them onto the Dig App. Each of these bund photos will be assigned to an investor (you). This way, when you log in to our Regreening Platform, you get to see your very own and unique bund photo! And then… The regreening process begins. When the first rain falls, vegetation starts to sprout within the bunds. Ultimately, all these bunds together will turn a dry and degraded area to be green and cool again.
Fundis are the supervisors of the bund projects. They make sure the bunds are dug correctly and take pictures of every bund that has been dug. These pictures are uploaded to the Regreening Platform where they are coupled to a bund buyer.
In order to run the bund projects smoothly, we have project managers at location. These project managers are the main point of contact for the diggers and the fundis. Lenayia from our partner organization MWCT is one of our project managers in the bund projects.
Besides diggers, we also work with rangers in the project areas. They protect the areas from grazing livestock, making sure the areas remain green. Next to this, they also protect the wildlife in the areas from poachers.
