ABSTRACT
This chapter is concerned with a program of assistance to nomads in Northern Mali who had been rendered destitute by the drought years of the early 1970s. In cooperation with the Malian government, the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) helped establish a new nomad village called Tin Aicha. The American Friends Service Committee began its work in Tin Aicha in 1974. Direct program involvement continued in the new village until 1980. Since that time, AFSC staff has been based in Goundam, continuing activities with nomad groups in the region and maintaining contact with Tin Aicha through occasional visits. The Tin Aicha project is of particular interest to the International Relief/Development Project because it shows how an outside nongovernmental organization, working in close cooperation with a local government, assisted a population as they adapted to new circumstances forced on them by a catastrophic event, severe drought. Mali became independent in 1960 and is governed under a one-party democratic system.
