Editor’s note: GW Today first featured Haddow in a May 2023 article as he was about to begin his Peace Corps mission in Senegal.
After three months of training and two months of settling into a town in eastern Senegal, Oliver Haddow, B.A. ’23, was finally ready to begin the nitty-gritty service work he pledged to undertake when he signed up for a two-year commitment in the Peace Corps.
Specializing in urban agriculture during his mission, Haddow—who graduated with a degree in international affairs focused on contemporary cultures and societies with minors in French language, literature and culture at the George Washington University—organized a training to show local farmers a more efficient way of adding manure to soil, part of a climate-friendly effort trying to move away from chemicals.
He didn’t know what to expect. He was still learning the region’s commonly used Wolof language, and he wasn’t sure of the reception he would receive. Lo and behold, more than 20 farmers showed up.
“They were all there, ready to support me. I don’t even know if the training stuck, but that didn’t matter,” said Haddow, a native of the Philadelphia area. “They were just excited to show up and see what I’d learned. That really meant a lot.”
Over the past two years, Haddow has fully immersed himself in his local Senegal community and answering the Peace Corps’ call to where he was needed. His main objective has been to increase food security in the town, and having some basic farming knowledge from training and past life experiences helped connect him to local farmers pretty quickly. He would spend his early days with the local farmers, and as time went on, he started noticing areas where people were looking for support.
One of his projects included a partnership with an organization that researches new seed variety. He’d track rain, seeding and weeding dates and harvest levels just to see how that variety worked. He also started going into Senegal schools to run environment clubs, where activities included trash cleanups, tree-planting days and even growing mint in microgardens. Beyond that, he would visit different gardens in town—mostly home gardens—and teach local citizens about composting and plant spacing.
“I’d help out where I could, and I think we both learned from each other,” Haddow said.
These experiences led him to his final project before his mission concludes at the end of November. Haddow is working to create a garden for a women’s gardening group. There was no community garden in town, and buying fresh vegetables was tough as they were imported from two hours away. The village chief presented the idea to Haddow, who then pitched it to the women’s gardening group president.
“People were already gardening in tiny spaces, using cut-up water bottles or plastic bins,” Haddow said. “They had the motivation, just not the space or water access. So now we’ve been working on the infrastructure while I train the group in all the gardening fundamentals—composting, pest control, plant spacing. Everyone shows up, takes notes—they’re really committed. It’s been awesome.”
Already confident in Senegal’s official language, French, when he arrived, Haddow eagerly learned the Wolof dialect that has allowed him to connect so much with the farmers, gardeners and citizens of the town. He has thoroughly enjoyed building relationships with community members as he has sought to make a difference.
“It’s helped me realize that international affairs, for me, is really about connecting with people globally,” Haddow said. “Language and culture are at the heart of that.”
He will return to the United States in November, perhaps moving back to familiar roots in either D.C. or Philadelphia. But that’s four months from now. Haddow has been fully immersive during his time in the Peace Corps, and he does not want that mindset to end prematurely. He’s got a community garden to build, after all.
“Every time I think too much about the future, it pulls me out of the present,” Haddow said. “I’m trying to just be here, take it all in and make the most of the time I have left.”
