My name is Abdou-Latifou Dare, and I grew up in Bassar, a farming community in northern Togo. Now, as a plant science student at Connecticut College, I return home each year and hear the same stories from local farmers: 'The machine came too late.' 'The rain spoiled half the harvest.' 'We argued about whose field would be served first.' In the entire Bassar prefecture, thousands of farmers share only about seven small working corn shellers. Other post-harvest machines—like peanut, melon seed (egusi), and cassava processors—are even rarer or are sitting broken. At harvest time, this means long queues, sleepless nights, and very real losses. A single unplanned rain can damage crops that took months of labor.

This fundraiser will help change that by launching a community-run mobile tool library: a small fleet of shared processing machines and cargo tricycles that travel from village to village, serving farmers at fair, locally understood prices. Instead of each farmer trying (and failing) to buy their own machine, the community will share cassava milling and pressing equipment, multipurpose shellers for corn, sorghum, and soybeans, motorized shellers for peanuts and melon seed (egusi), and two cargo tricycles to move machines and bagged grain between villages and farms.

Why now? I am currently applying for a Davis Projects for Peace grant to support this project in summer 2026. Their funding (if approved) would cover much of the core equipment. However, having some funding in place strengthens the proposal and shows local and external commitment. Even if the Davis grant is not approved, your donations will allow us to start on a smaller scale (for example, one tricycle and fewer machines) and then grow year by year. This end-of-year fundraiser is my way of saying: “I am not waiting for someone else to fix this. I am starting now, with whoever will stand with Bassar’s farmers.”

Funds raised here will help us purchase a cargo tricycle, a multipurpose sheller, motor engines, a cassava processing unit, and cover spare parts, storage, and logistics. This will allow the community to share equipment, reduce losses, and harvest crops more efficiently and peacefully. If you believe that people who feed their families and communities deserve tools, not just hard labor; if you believe that peace is built in the ordinary places where conflict and scarcity show up—then I invite you to be part of this project. A gift of any size will help farmers in Bassar harvest without conflict. Thank you for considering a year-end contribution.