Agency for village support (AVISU)

The overall objective of AVISU is to contribute to the improvement of communities’ well-being and environmental conditions in the Central River Region, in the context of increased in climate change impacts. This can be attained through:

• Improve the involvement of communities in decision making and actions for biodiversity conservation
• Contribute to food security and economic development in Central River Region, in the context of climate changes
• Support the most vulnerable communities on basic needs such as advocate for climate justice & equity, protecting children rights and dignities in CRR, Support emergency operations after disasters, and Provide safe drinking water and sanitation
• Improve the management standards of our organisation to make it more robust.

Created in 2006, AVISU’s work focuses on development programmes that promote positive and lasting changes and improves sustainable livelihoods among the vulnerable and marginalised groups in the Central River Region of the Gambia (CRR). Part of our objective includes the enhancement of rural livelihoods particularly for women and youths, which was earlier implemented through a functional literacy programme among 40 women literacy groups within Lower and Upper Saloum Districts of CRR. Most of the activities implemented during the functional literacy programme included teaching on basic numeracy, orthography and developing community Action Plan (CAP); which was done through facilitating women groups to identify their problems/immediate community needs, present them into action plans and then AVISU to further facilitate linkages with partners/donors to address their problems.

AVISU later worked in partnership with United Purpose (UP) to established women-led marketing federation which comprised of 45 women and youth horticultural growers in CRR South of the Gambia; in order to create linkages with markets and vendors.

AVISU then further expanded its areas of intervention to include amongst others enhancing food security through supporting vegetable gardening, crop productions, poultry & livestock management, etc.; Micro-enterprise development; Provision of safe drinking water and sanitation; Environment and natural resources management and protection; Gender mainstreaming and women empowerment and on Disaster risk reduction activities.