Tanzania Peace Corps volunteer Danelle Hawk was having a tough day. The car she was traveling in had broken down, and after riding eight kilometers on a borrowed bicycle she paused on the side of the road to consider her options.

Then she noticed an approaching vehicle with the EnterpriseWorks logo stenciled on the door. It was EWW’s agricultural extension agent Busi Mathias, who happened to be looking for Danelle so they could give a tree nursery seminar in her village. She jumped in, pleased not only to have a ride, but to start a new project.

Hawk is one of a dozen Peace Corps environment volunteers currently working on EWW’s USAID-funded treecrops program in Tanzania, which so far has helped rural entrepreneurs start 255 timber and fruit tree nurseries and sell 382,000 trees. Originally from Ohio, Hawk now lives in Ikuna, a village in the southern highlands of Tanzania’s Iringa district.

“There was a lot of timber growing activity in my village already,” said Hawk, “but EnterpriseWorks is bringing in expertise that lets people improve their nurseries.” This includes introducing species that thrive in the high altitudes of Iringa, and water-harvesting techniques that can improve production and profitability of a nursery.

Volunteer Todd Mercord also collaborates with EWW in his village of Kilolo. With a background of working on watershed and water quality issues in Colorado, Mercord was impressed with the technical knowledge EnterpriseWorks brings to prospective nursery operators. “I have some knowledge of growing trees from my Peace Corps training,” said Mercord, “but EnterpriseWorks really knows what works in this region. I can learn a lot from their seminars in my village and then help to reinforce the science that the villagers might find unfamiliar.”

It’s an ideal relationship – the volunteers gain additional hands-on project experience, and EWW can achieve greater results through the volunteers’ hard work, ingenuity, and local knowledge.

Encouraging the development of tree nurseries is good for Tanzania’s economy and environment. With fruit trees, nursery operators and customers can earn substantial incomes and help to decrease Tanzania’s reliance on expensive imported fruit. With timber, income is also earned but it also reduces the need to harvest indigenous wood. For Mercord, it’s the entrepreneurial aspect of the program that he likes the most. “Not everybody who goes to our seminars will have their own nursery some day, but some of them will, and that’s very important.”