“It has been years since we last saw vegetation in this area, we hope this intervention will work well. Our neighborhood communities make fun of us, whenever they want to direct anyone to come to our village they always say Pembamoto is around that place with dry hills. With this intervention, in the coming years they will say that Pembamoto is in that area with green hills” said a village leader from Pembamoto village in Dodoma when we went to introduce the Rainwater Harvesting technique for the first time in 2018.

In October 2018, we dug 5,143 bunds in the village in cooperation with Justdiggit and hundreds of local farmers. The bunds might look small from an eagle eye, but they are quiet big; 6 metres length ,3 metres wide and one foot deep.

The red hill 🙂

8 months later in June 2018, after a good rain season the first vegetation came out.

Once the bunds have been dug they will keep on regreening themselves! Not only within the bund but also the surrounding area will become greener and fertile. Here is a great example of how the bunds look in 2020

These days they say Pembamoto is located next to the green hills 🙂

Now this technique is spreading by itself in Pembamoto area. Villagers have joined hands to make their village greener than ever. Out of their own initiative, they will dig bunds in all other degraded areas of the village and will use the grass seeds from the existing bunds to boost vegetation in those degraded areas.

Local farmers unite to harvest grass seeds which will be used to regreen other degraded areas

GREEN IS THE NEW NORMAL IN PEMBAMOTO!