After decades of backbreaking subsistence farming, Malik Ndao faced a bleak future. Despite years of work cultivating his fields, Malik could barely grow enough crops in Senegal’s barren land and arid soil to feed his family, much less make a living. He was often forced to leave his wife and five children for months in search of additional work to support the family. “I used to leave my mother and wife for the entire dry season, and still I struggled to bring home $20,” Malik recalls from years earning tips pushing wheelbarrows and carrying boxes. Hunger drove him to scavenge the local forest for wood and fruit, where he gathered anything he could eat or sell. Barely surviving, he could only dream of a better life.
