From The Grassroots

From The Grassroots Hands On Special
(Programme 51)

Producer: Janet Boston
Director: Robert Lamb

Year: 1998

Genre: Educational, Documentary

Region: Senegal, Ghana, Mali

Duration: 26"

Language: English

This Hands On Special from West Africa reports from Ghana where a radio programme is part of an environmental awareness project to persuade people to plant trees, not burn the bush. In Senegal, a group of young women have set up a scheme to sort household waste, and clear up the sewers. Timbuktu in Mali is in danger from the sands of the Sahara desert which threaten to engulf it. But help is at hand with a new sand fixing project. Back in Ghana, a course in Batik making has been hugely popular and former students have set up their own workshops. Once common across the African Sahel, the Sulcata tortoise is extremely rare, not just because of poaching and capture, but also the depletion of their habitat by logging and bushfires. A Tortoise reserve set up in Senegal is starting to reverse the trend.