Like an oasis within the midst of the limitless Mauritanian desert stands an evocation of greenery and hope: Maaden el Ervane, prepare on guidelines of communal life and sustainability. It bears witness to the great imaginative and prescient of its founder; the Sufi religious info Mohammed Lemina Sidina.
It’s a neighborhood that, from 1975, has gone from a distant piece of fertile land to a full-fledged village, mocking the hostile conditions of the desert.
Foundation of Maaden el Ervane
MAHMUD TURKIA/AFP by means of Getty Images
It was correct from the beginning that Sidina had a clear imaginative and prescient: a neighborhood the place equality, fraternity, tolerance, and onerous work weren’t beliefs nonetheless a life-style.
The village, whose establish means “the deposit of knowledge,” is an open-air monument to a preacher who died over 20 years previously.
With these traits, it is seen in residents like Djibril Niang who, 50 years once more, traveled from Senegal to make an interracial marriage with Sidina’s daughter-once thought of a very unthinkable act; he says.
“There could also be equality. No caste, no race… We’re all brothers.” The day-after-day lifetime of the neighborhood goes in collective decision-making and power, the place every night time is spent planning for what work must be carried out the following day, whether or not or not it is digging a correctly, making a freeway, or planting a palm tree.
It is by means of this spirit of cooperation {{that a}} small dam has been constructed, fields had been formed, and a university along with a neighborhood clinic had been set as a lot as make Madden self-sufficient.
Sustainable practices and thriving agriculture
Maaden was grew to become a inexperienced paradise by Maaden’s dedication to sustainable agriculture. Chemical fertilizers had been displaced by compost launched in by pure farming methods launched by Pierre Rabhi, whereas fuel-powered motor pumps had been grow to be photograph voltaic strategies.
The arable lands inside the village proceed in order so as to add up, helped by the wind that clears off the sand from fields, naturally making room for tomato, pepper, carrot, onion, and watermelon cultivation
.Turning to a farmer like Mohamed Ould Vaide, who reveals off the harvest from the drip irrigation method that he used, one then realizes how good it is that he was taught the method. “I’m going to in no way go away Maaden. There isn’t a place choose it,” he says.
The train of agriculture has put Maaden into the limelight, and now, many villages that inhabit the neighborhood not have members, nonetheless Maaden continues to have friends.In conclusion time, Maaden el Ervane is a whole utterly totally different one factor, a village, a model for the long term.
People at Maaden el Ervane dwell with nature, they dwell with each other. Exhibiting that even inside the very coronary coronary heart of the desert, an oasis could also be inexperienced, and through far more than crops, equality can also breed life greater.
The village adopted composting, a pure system of recycling decomposed pure provides proper right into a rich soil additive.
Maaden el Ervane has modified the utilization of chemical fertilizers with compost. It would not solely restore the soil however as well as nourishes it once more with vital nutritional vitamins.
Plus, it reduces the damaging environmental impacts often associated to those merchandise.
One different principal innovation is the flexibility sources for the irrigation strategies using photograph voltaic panels.
This fashion, the village, which had its irrigation strategies powered by motor pumps using fuel, is saved from it. Saving them from their carbon footprints and saving them from rising relying on non-renewable sources of vitality.
Drip Irrigation Method
Drip irrigation is an environment friendly watering system the place the roots of the vegetation get hold of water instantly.
This know-how helps protect water and ensures that every drop of the liquid reaches the crops inside the precise quantity that is required by their progress.
That could be very environment friendly inside the arid environments typical of the desert of Mauritania, the place every drop of water counts.
Henna Grinding Machine for Girls’s Empowerment
Along with, there was a further provide of income for the women of Maaden el Ervane by means of the introduction of a henna grinding machine.
After they weren’t of their cottage industries, tilling, or shopping for and promoting, they might apply themselves to the treatment of the native henna plant to make cosmetics. That not solely drastically supported the village’s financial system however as well as empowered women in monetary phrases.
These are pure farming methods which have made Maaden el Ervane a hub of environmentalism, amongst totally different concepts, inside this pioneering concept dropped at this village by Pierre Rabhi, a French pioneer of pure farming.
They’ve made regardless of property that the village has had agriculturally conducive whereas remaining devoted to sustainability.
