Inspire & mobilize farmers

What we do

Building a global landscape restoration movement

We make dry land
green again

Together with millions of farmers & pastoralists.

Our goal is to inspire and mobilize millions of subsistence farmers and pastoralists in sub-Saharan Africa to make dry land green again.

This makes a huge impact on crop yields, biodiversity, water availability, local climate as well as climate change on a global scale! Here’s our approach making this change happen.

Building a grassroots movement

We focus on grassroots empowerment.

Empowering people, one by one, to regreen their land is a cost-effective and scalable method and a catalyst for socio-economic change. For this to happen we need to get into people’s hearts and minds. We inspire farmers by showing the benefits of restoring land and provide them with tools on how to get started.

Our Theory of Change

Regreening hearts and minds is fundamental for building a landscape restoration movement.

To actually create a real, lasting change in people’s mindset, we inspire farmers and pastoralists through national and regional awareness campaigns, which makes them more receptive for the next stage: targeted messaging. Once farmers are aware and have engaged with regreening as a concept, we use targeted messages to inform by teaching a certain practice, and to enthuse, giving farmers the drive and the confidence to regreen by themselves.

By celebrating successes and inspiring people in the process, we spread the word and spread the green.

Empowering farmers through regreening programs

In all our programs on the ground, we look for the best ways to closely cooperate with local partners and communities. We also ensure there is a clear socio-economic benefit for them with each intervention so that we can ensure the programs are sustainable.

Case Study: Tanzania

In Tanzania, we have been training a group of regreening champions on how to practice and teach regreening techniques. After these so-called Training of Trainers workshops, the regreening champions go back to their communities to educate fellow farmers and pastoralists on how to improve their land. The more people practice and share their successes, the more people are inspired and join in.

These champions are supported not only by our local organizations and stakeholders, but also with an effective communication package, for example posters, flyers, or painting murals with a clear call-to-action, or a movie roadshow.

Inspiring farmers

Throughout Sub-Saharan Africa

Through the programs we have implemented up to now, we know regreening works, and we know how it works. Now, we have started to reach farmers outside of our own programs, ultimately this will be anywhere in Africa. We do this by harnessing all sorts of communication & technology possibilities: internet, apps, radio, TV, out-of-home communication and individual (SMS) messages.

They are encouraged throughout the year by us showing them the results in their areas and providing regreening tips and tricks. As well as that, giving them other useful information, such as the anticipated start of the rainy season. This means we can reach more and more people, even without being on the ground. This is one of the ways we scale up the regreening process!

How we reach farmers - some examples

Movie roadshow

Farm Radio

SMS Service

Greener.LAND

Movie roadshow in Tanzania

Our movie roadshow is a video-caravan that we run together with our partner LEAD Foundation. We have been going from village to village to inspire farmers to start practicing Kisiki Hai on their own land. During the roadshow, a cinema screen is set up to show our movie ‘Kisiki Hai ll’. We also use music, dance and theatre in the programme, to engage people as much as we can.

Although the movie roadshow was cancelled in 2020 due to COVID-19, by the end of 2019 we had reached over 300 villages! We aim to continue the roadshow with a new movie and new villages in 2021.

Farm Radio

Together with partners LEAD Foundation, Dodoma FM and Farm Radio International we developed a special Kisiki Hai radio program. The aim is to inspire and mobilize farmers to start regreening, so we can help regreen the land without setting foot on it. Due to COVID-19, this was especially important in 2020, when the radio show first aired. The show combines entertainment with practical information on the benefits and application of regreening.

During the first run of the radio show, over 300,000 Tanzanian farmers tuned in. Since then, the show has been re-run several times, inspiring even more people to regreen their land.

SMS Service

Every week we’re sending texts to Tanzanian farmers with tips and tricks, motivational messages and weather forecasts to support them in regreening their own land. The regreening techniques we explain in our sms service are Kisiki Hai & Fanyaa Juu / Chini.

So far, over 68,000 farmers are signed up for our weekly SMS service.

Greener.Land

Together with Natuurverdubbelaars and SamSam we have developed Greener.LAND, an online tool to help farmers and organizations find the regreening techniques that best suit their particular landscapes and climates.