Student fights against Hunger in Africa

The 17-year-old Anna Pertl has in West Africa, a project against malnutrition in the country started. Now the pupil will be awarded in Burkina Faso.

she is 18 years old and has moved on with their social commitment in one of the poorest countries in the world already Amazing. For two years Anna Pertl organized by the horticulture project, "One Woman, one Garden" that allows women in Burkina Faso, to feed with the income in the dry season, their families, or to achieve a extra income. The student at the Munich International School in Buchhof has begun as a 15-Year-old and developed it as a "Grade 10 Personal Project", in the framework of a curriculum for an International Baccalaureate.

"There is no more effective tool for the development, to be transferred as a women's responsibility": This quote from Kofi Annan, the former UN Secretary-General, stands as a Motto over Pertls Initiative. What began with 80 participants, meanwhile, has reached more than 5000 ten people inside. The student will be held next Saturday, 15. In December, the highest award of the West African Republic honored. To do this, you will fly from Munich to the capital, Ouagadougou, and from there, a two hour drive in the town of Koudougou, where the mayor's order of national merit, "La Medaille de 'ordre du merit national" award.

Out of the Initiative of the individual gardeners are grown indoors, in the meantime, community projects, the women in the villages to work together to manage.

Like many other ground-breaking idea is based Pertls project to a fairly simple realization. At one of their regular trips to Burkina Faso you noticed that in Europe, the widespread cultivation of vegetables in home gardens was completely unknown. "The people there are innovations suspicious. My Mission was to inspire a new Tradition," said Pertl.

Burkina Faso, formerly upper Volta, is one of the most backward countries in the world: In the development Index of the United Nations, it ranks 181st out of 187 countries covered. Almost two-thirds of the population must survive on less than one US Dollar per day, malnutrition-related infant mortality rate is 41 percent. Not even 30 percent of women can read and write, only six percent are allowed to visit secondary schools. Climate change is exacerbating the situation: For the last 35 years, the drought influenced the Sahel, there are observed decreasing rainfall Zone penetrates further and further to the South.

For several years, Anna Pertl accompanied her parents to twice a year to West Africa, where they engage at a high school in Koudougou. Before she developed her own project, under the daughter taught English there, and the school issued book. For "One Woman one Garden" has developed an agricultural training programme and was looking for suitable land, and sponsors for seeds and fertilizer, as well as local markets for the sale of eggplant, cucumbers, cabbage, onions and tomatoes.

As wells dug, and the gardens with fences made from old mosquito nets were protected from the ubiquitous goats, delivered even individual gardens of only ten square meters in area revenue. The women used them for new seeds and to grow their gardens. After only one year of more than 1000 ten people participating already on the inside of Anna Pertl triggered the Initiative. Meanwhile, the programmatic title of the project should be expanded actually to "Many Women, one Community Garden": More and more women together in villages to the community to create gardens.