40 Years of Memories

I have a very clear memory of when I heard about and saw Canadian Foodgrains Bank at work. Back in 2011, I joined Utooni Development Organization a partner funded by Mennonite Central committee. There was famine in the region when i joined and the communities were receiving inkind food to give them the energy to work on their farms as the expected the rains. I was humbled by the gesture of giving people food to work on their own farms. The name Foodgrains then made sense to me. The well labelled bags with grains and containers of cooking oil found their way to the community members each weekend and saturday was a very important day for each family who was part of the UDO program and worked on their farms during the week. As I trained communities on the importance of Soil conservation through Terraces, sand dam constructions, tree planting and preparing their gardens I was motivated to see the passion with which the men and women worked to at least ensure they had a meal for their families. As i visited individual farms as part of monitoring field visits, I couldn't fail to see the Joy, appreciate the Energy and visualize the Hope the communities had, realizing besides supporting each other to prepare their farms, they didn't have to worry about what they were going to eat. Canadian Foodgrains Bank through MCC had generously provide a food ration of 10 kgs Maize, 5 kgs beans and 1 litre cooking oil every week for each of the households. Long live Canadian Foodgrains!