My Nonprofit Reviews

Bess Palmisciano, the nomads’ advocate

In 2002 a New Hampshire woman named Bess Palmisciano visited the Sahara Desert with her husband. This trip would change her life and the life of others forever.

Bess says, “There’s a mystery at the heart of it, an attraction I don’t completely understand.”

The mystery lies in the remote Niger region of West Africa. The attraction is the legendary Tuareg and Wodaabe nomads who live in these beautiful and barren lands. Bess and her husband were
introduced to the vast Sahara by their Tuareg guide, Moussa Haidara. Bess saw the school Moussa
had attended as a child. But what had once been a bustling compound housing the residential school and its teachers with a dispensary and a garden to feed the students was now a cluster of
abandoned buildings. Niger’s support for its schools had shrunk with the nation’s economy. This
country is the poorest in the world.

Bess would return several times, digging deep to learn about the intriguing cultures, harsh life, and dire needs of these nomadic people who, in spite of increasing drought and political unrest, share
a sharp desire to improve their conditions.

And here it was that Bess found her calling. Starting with no knowledge of either the official French language or the people’s mother tongue, with no connections in the country save Moussa,
and with only the vaguest idea of how to obtain funding, she would not only help rebuild this school
but, in partnership with nomadic parents, create programs for the sustainable development of school
market gardens with drip irrigation systems as well as programs for community enterprises such as women’s artisan cooperatives and grain-grinding businesses that set aside half their profits for their schools.

That is how Rain for the Sahel and Sahara (RAIN) was born. Now,
nine years later, the non-profit
organization that grew out of a serendipitous journey has made a profound impact on the eduction,
health and food security of Niger nomads in many areas. In a region with a literacy rate under 10%
more and more children are enrolling in school. With Bess’s astute, hands-on guidance as Executive Director, RAIN has created libraries and market gardens, wells and updated irrigation
systems, women’s artisan cooperatives, scholarship and student mentoring programs, and has been tremendously effective in providing HIV/AIDS awareness and education. Parents, mostly women,
serve as mentors, encouraging children to stay in school, teaching after-school classes in traditional
skills, talking to them of opportunities for their futures – opportunities these illiterate mentors never
had but desperately want for their children. Recently the mentors were offered RAIN-designed
and sponsored bilingual literacy classes, learning to read and write in French as well as in their
own language.

The mysterious pull that the desert of Niger exerted on Bess Palmisciano has resulted in deep
friendships, long-term sustainable change, and a permanent relationship with the dunes of the
Sahara and its wanderers.
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