Surviving climate change – Goodness’ story
Flooding is increasingly the greatest challenge facing farming communities in the Delta State area of Nigeria.
In 2018, more than 1.9 million people were affected by floods across 12 states in Nigeria. It led to half a million people being forced to leave their homes.
One of them was Goodness Johnny, 29, a farmer from Abuator community in the Delta State area. She received emergency relief materials from ActionAid Nigeria while staying in a camp for displaced people in Kwale after the flooding forced her family to leave their home.
Since then she has received training on disaster risk reduction to help protect her community during future floods and climate resilient farming methods.
But each year, flooding ravages the community, destroying crops like plantain, cassava, peppers and pawpaw.
“What happened in 2012 also happened in 2018. I don’t want it to happen again in 2019,” she says.
Goodness, who is married with three children, also received training from ActionAid on how to organise with other community members and she is part of a registered cooperatives society. This enables members to save money and provides a platform to discuss the issues affecting them.
