The Teriya Bugu center works in the following areas:
- A center for responsible tourism
- Biofuel project
- Local development
- Agricultural and environmental activities
These activities are all part of a process to increase the responsibility and autonomy of the local populations.
The sustainable turism center :
It includes a 27 hotel with 27 rooms and bungalows, a restaurant, a “bar-hut”, a pool, a 100 seat conference room, a museum and multiple touristic and athletic activities (cultural visits, bird walks, botanical trail, paddle boats, and sports grounds). All facilities are located in a large wooded garden on the banks of the Bani River.
The rooms have bathrooms with running water and have air conditioners or fans. Three dormitories with fans allow us to receive travelers with more modest budgets.
The restaurant offers European and African cuisine prepared to your preference with produce from the farm and surrounding villages.
Biofuel Project, Jatropha curcas:
The village of Teriya Bugu consumes around 65 000 liters of diesel fuel per year to provide electricity to the center for responsible tourism, for rural development and to the inhabitants of the village. In order to no longer be dependent on petroleum for its electricity et to perpetuate the tradition or renewable energy at Teriya Bugu, it was decided in 2006 to put a rural electrification project into place by producing fuel from the Jatropha curcas plant.
- In collaboration with CIRAD, a research program on Jatropha curcas is taking place at Teriya Bugu;
- Teriya Bugu cultivates its own plots to ensure a minimum supply of seeds and to make techno-economic observations;
- The peasants of the area were made aware of the cultivation of Jatropha curcas and are the main suppliers of seeds Teriya Bugu;
Our processing unit is equipped with everything necessary for processing oil into biofuel
Local development: education, health and community activities:
- The Community School of Teriya Bugu is an elementary school covering nine grades with a total of approximately 250 students. This school is accredited by the Government of Mali, which funds a portion of the teachers’ salaries.
- A kindergarten has been operating for two years for children of 2 to 6 years of age.
- The library is managed by the teachers of the school and allows us to offer a wide variety of books and documents for students and adults. The books come from donations made each year by associations and schools in France.
- Health: the clinic and its maternity perform an average of 160 consultations and 11 deliveries per month. The facility is frequented by residents of a dozen hamlets and villages.
- Purchasing cooperative and social assistance: workers at Teriya Bugu have formed a cooperative to purchase basic food items and to provide mutual social assistance.
Farming and environmental activities
- Forest: 200000 eucalyptus trees have been planted since the inception of Teriya Bugu, and are used for cooking (firewood and charcoal) and the sale of timber and lumber.
- Reforestation: Each year, Teriya Bugu replants mainly with fruit trees. The planting is done both at Teriya Bugu itself and by local people in the nearby rural area. Awareness raising is done among students and reforestation activities are done in school. A nursery produces a large proportion of the species replanted each year.
- Livestock: Teriya Bugu has small holdings of rabbits, chickens and ducks that supply the restaurant. Horses and donkeys are used for tourist rides on one hand and plowing fields on the other. There is a small zoo with a dozen different species of animals.
- Beekeeping: more than 140 hives produce honey from eucalyptus trees and savannah flowers, a product highly appreciated by tourists and famous throughout Mali.
- Arboriculture and gardening: Teriya Bugu includes several acres of banana plantations and orchards of mango, citrus, guava, papaya, etc. The garden also produces a wide variety of vegetables. Production keeps up with the needs of the restaurant with local resellers taking care of the rest.
Energy and water at Teriya Bugu
- Teriya Bugu has its own power plant (24/24) with a distribution network throughout the village, providing electricity to about fifty individual subscribers and eight professional or social structures (hotel, school, clinic, welding shop, etc.)
- Drinking water is distributed through a network of pipes fed by several water towers connected to a drilled well with a depth of 80m. The system supplies the entire village with individual taps in each concession.
- Water for Irrigation is taken from the Bani River mainly by solar electric pumps backed up by an electric pump and / or a motorized pump.
- Four of the hotel rooms are supplied with hot water through solar water heaters.
