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The NOMAD Foundation

seeking to balance cultural tradition...with economic opportunity

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    • Sponsor Students
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Tamesna Center for Nomadic Life

The Tamesna Center for nomadic life began in 2008 with a well.  Conceived to bring services and education programs nomads want and need, it is located on the annual migration route, accessible without having to settle down and lose their cultural and economic traditions. Since 2008 we have completed a medical clinic, adult education center where we have conducted midwife training, earthbag building training solar fabrication training programs, a boarding school, nurses residence, vaccination corals, fenced garden and latrines.  As the centers programs expand we initiated a festival in November 2013 to invite nomads of the entire region to celebrate with us and to present to them our programs and exchange ideas.  This is a unique interaction with the remote and inaccessible populations of the nomadic north.  In the six years we have been fixed at the center, the nomads have developed confidence in us.  We hope the programs continue to expand according to the current needs and to improve the stability of the region through interaction, friendship and opportunity.

HISTORY:  Nomadic tribes in Niger live as they have for centuries, seeking pasture for their herds on the fringes of the vast Sahara Desert. They roam the most remote, inhospitable part of the poorest country in the world. Difficult to find and serve, they have long been ignored by their own government and overlooked by humanitarian organizations. For more than a decade the Nomad Foundation has been assisting these vulnerable people, whose nomadic existence is threatened by decreasing pastureland, political upheaval and uranium mining.

Digging wells, building schools and cereal banks, vaccinating animals, and teaching new job skills, the Nomad Foundation has helped the nomads preserve their rich traditions while also creating economic opportunities.

In 2009, the foundation opened Niger’s first medical clinic expressly designed for nomads, serving an area of 50,000 square miles. Thousands seeking medical care for the first time in their lives have come to the clinic on foot, by camel and donkey, or in wagons. Midwives have now been trained to help women (who suffer the worst maternal mortality rate in the world) safely deliver babies in the bush. The next step  was education of nomadic children. (The literacy rate in Niger is 33% and worse among nomads.) Located next to the medical clinic, the school will anchor the new nomadic community of TAMESNA, located about 35 miles from the closest village of Ingal and conveniently situated along the nomads’ annual migration route.

The school has been open for 2 years with the  children staying in nearby encampments.  Eating three meals a day, which we provide at the school.  Parents who agree to help tend the school garden and its animals– and who agree to enroll both their daughters and their sons in school– will be allowed to settle at TAMESNA, using the community’s water and benefiting from the opportunities and services there. Several nomadic communities would like to relocate to TAMESNA. Some are desperately seeking a new home base because their existing land has been contaminated by uranium mining.

Within a few years the school will be enlarged with construction of dormitories and a kitchen to accommodate boarders. Ultimately, the school is expected to enroll hundreds of students.

The nomadic Touareg and Wodaabe of Niger have faced challenges to their nomadic way of life from environmental and political concerns. These have recently become more serious due to the discovery of uranium in their traditional pasturelands and the departure of many of the organization that used to help them because of security concerns in the region. The Tamesna Center for Nomadic life is conceived to help them meet these challenges. Located in the heart of nomadic territory, on the annual migration route to the pastureland of the “salt cure”, it is easily accessible to both nomads and vehicles. Tamesna will provide a fixed location for nomads to have access to essential services that require a fixed location. Here they will be able to visit and explore ways of adapting to the changing world and improving their lives, without abandoning their nomadic traditions.

  1. Tamesna Center for Nomadic Life

    Tamesna Center is the focal point of all our projects--bringing essential services to nomads with fixed facilities on their annual migration route.
    $5,135.00 donated
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Tamesna Center Niger Africa

Tamesna Festival

Details

Budget

Details

THE TAMESNA CENTER FOR NOMADIC LIFE A model for sustaining nomadic herding in the north of Niger.  Niger's nomads are largely overlooked by humanitarian aid organizations, because they are hard to find and hard to help. The Nomad Foundation's unique TAMESNA Center for Nomadic Life, located on the annual migration route, will offer critical services...

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Tamesna Budget

COMPLETED PROJECTS AT TAMESNA CENTER$535,181.00 Cemented Well$10,0002008Rotary International 25,000 litre WaterTank/solar pump & panels$61,0322008Rotary International Medical Clinic$25,0002009Great Escape Foundation/Nomad Foundation Solar Electric System for Clinic$5,4002009Nomad Foundation Fenced Garden Plot/demonstration garden$29,050 2009Rotary International Vaccination Corrals$24,0002010Rotary International/Nomad Foundation Latrines$15,0002010Rotary International Education Center$68,0002011Great Escape Foundation/Nomad Foundation Teacher training to locally based teachers$20,1582010Rotary International Nurses residence$6,0002012Nomad Foundation Solar training...

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Tamesna Festival

Tamesna Festival
The best way to communicate with nomads is to have a party and they will come.  Tamesna is very centrally situated on their migration route and the programs there can benefit all nomads.  We hold a festival each year in November--for them to present their cultural traditions, both Wodaabe and Tuareg, and  to present to...

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How To Help

  • Sponsor Students
  • Tamesna Center for Nomadic Life
  • Cataract Mission
  • Motorcycle Repair Training
  • Traditional Birth Attendant Training
  • Drill the Well for Tamesna
  • Buy an animal for a nomad
  • Buy Jewelry
  • Sponsor a Matrone

Posts From the Field

Dr Becky’s words from mission 2018

Desert FUN

Jewelers get tools and we all get a big party

Potato Gardens

Matrone program expands to Iferouane

Tamesna School 2018

Niger

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The Nomad Foundation, a US 501(c) 3 Corporation

Tax ID # 20-8170046