Soughya

The Challenge

Brahim's family has herded livestock across the same routes for generations. His grandfather taught his father, and his father taught him: when the first rains come, move north toward Adrar. By the heat of June, swing east to the wadis. Before the cold sets in, return south.

This knowledge kept herds alive. It sustained families. It worked for centuries.

It doesn't work anymore.

Three years ago, Brahim followed the traditional route north. The rains his grandfather's wisdom predicted never came. The pastures he expected to find were dust. Water holes that always held water were dry. He lost forty animals—half his herd—before he could react.

Last year, he tried something different. It didn't work either. The patterns that once made sense have dissolved into chaos. His grandfather's knowledge, that precious inheritance, has become unreliable in a world where nothing stays the same.

And with each passing season, more animals die. More families lose their livelihoods. More communities abandon the land their ancestors stewarded for generations and drift into the cities, hoping for work that often doesn't exist.

This isn't just about economics. It's about the collapse of a way of life. About food security for millions. About identity and dignity. About whether pastoral communities can survive in a climate that no longer plays by the old rules.

What We're Building

Soughya is designed to give pastoral communities what climate change has taken away: the ability to see ahead.

The vision is straightforward: What if Brahim could know—before he moves his herd—whether there's pasture waiting? What if he could see, from wherever he is, where water still flows? What if he received a warning weeks before drought conditions became life-threatening?

That's what Soughya aims to provide.

Using satellites that can see the entire country, we're building a system that monitors vegetation, tracks water sources, and detects emerging problems. The technology translates what satellites see into guidance that reaches herders on the most basic mobile phones—because smartphones don't exist in the deep Sahel, and solutions that require them aren't solutions at all.

No fancy equipment. No training required. No internet needed. Just information that could save animals, preserve livelihoods, and help communities adapt to a climate that no longer cooperates.

Why This Matters Beyond Mauritania

Brahim's crisis isn't unique to Mauritania. The same story plays out across the Sahel—from Senegal to Chad, Mali to Niger. Desertification, declining rainfall, pastoral communities under existential threat. Over 100 million people depend on pastoralism in this region. Most face the same impossible choice: adapt or disappear.

If we can help Mauritanian herders adapt, the same approach could help millions across an entire region.

And for global climate efforts, this matters enormously. Pastoral systems aren't just livelihoods—they're sustainable food production in some of the harshest environments on Earth. If we lose them, we lose both the people and the protein they provide.

The Human Element

This isn't about replacing traditional knowledge. Brahim knows things no satellite can see—which plants his animals prefer, how terrain affects movement, which routes are safe. That knowledge remains precious.

Soughya is designed to augment that wisdom with information traditional knowledge can't provide anymore: real-time environmental conditions across distances too vast to observe on foot.

It's about partnership between old wisdom and new tools. About giving communities fighting for survival a fair chance to adapt.