Help Provide Education for Girls in Kenya

March was been a busy month for the project and an exciting one for Ondati village. With the completion of the ‘zero grazing dairy unit’, otherwise known as a cow shed, the time had come to locate and purchase 3 beautiful animals to call it home. However, this was not as easy as first thought. Information flows in mysterious ways in these parts and the farm that was identified by our crack team of project staff and government livestock officers as a sure bet turned out not to want to sell. To their credit though, they persevered through the night and turned up at 1am with the goods, or at least something resembling them.

The cows are now settled into their new surroundings and enjoying the type of care that they would never have dreamed of before. As appreciation for their luxurious diet of napier grass, calliandra and dairy meal, the only one that is currently lactating has decided to increase her production by 40%! Let’s hope the others follow suit when they calve down in 2 and 5 months respectively.

Learning by doing The ethos behind the income generating activities of the TAMTF model is not only to cover school running costs. It is also to enhance the students’ education by involving them in the activities such that they learn technical and business skills that will empower them to make a decent living when they leave school. For Ondati girls, the first of this involvement will be in the establishment of agricultural demonstration plots. They will put into practice the theory that they have learnt in class and form groups that will take responsibility for planting, maintaining and harvesting their designated area with maize, beans and vegetables.

Water is life Water has played a big part in the activities of March. The first week witnessed the completion of the borehole and installation of the hand pump that will supply all of the project’s aquatic needs. As a result, the committee saw fit to use the occasion as a celebration of the project so far and an opportunity for members of the community to add their views. Before I knew it a ram was being killed and skinned in front of my eyes and I was being asked to cook ugali for 40.

If water was coming only from the ground I would have been happy. But alas, most of it was coming from the sky as rainy season imposed itself aggressively upon us. Luckily, the pattern is relatively predictable – clear in the morning, gradually clouding over from 3pm and letting rip at around 5, just when I’m walking home.

April should see the arrival of several African bee colonies, hopefully not the killer variety.

Links:

• Ondati Blog

It seems like a long time since my last blog post, and in fact I’m now in my last month in Kenya and lots has happened since I last wrote.

Making professional plans During December we made use of the quiet during school holidays to do lots of planning. Many of the previous business budgets had been done without consultation from experts. This meant that they were inaccurate and couldn’t be a good basis for us to decide which businesses would be most profitable and which should be started first. So during December we met with: a livestock officer from the ministry of agriculture to rework the dairy budget, a horticultural expert to discuss mango seedlings, tree seedlings and pineapple and an apiculturist to work on plans and budgeting for a bee keeping project. These meetings gave us a good basis to sit as the committee and make plans for the coming year.

Dairy business As the dairy business now looks very profitable work on it has restarted. Our napier grass is now ready to harvest, we are currently having the cow shed constructed and have just started the task of researching suitable cows to purchase. This last task is very important to get right as buying good quality cows is crucial to the success of the project, therefore careful research is needed.

Grain storage business We have also just started purchasing our second batch of grain for the grain storage business. We are hoping that a good profit will be made this time round as we implement the lessons learned from the first batch. This time we made sure money was ready early so that we didn’t miss the lowest market price. We are also advertising for local farmers to bring their maize to us rather than traveling to markets to purchase it. This increases profitability as we minimize transport costs and losses due to spillages. It also means we are benefiting Ondati’s farmers by providing a market for them to sell their maize.

Recruiting new students The other main task of the last month has been recruiting students to join Form 1. After the KCPE (Kenyan Certificate of Primary Education) results came out at the end of the December the recruitment drive really began! Myself and Margaret Kisambi first traveled to all the local primary schools to collect names of girls who may be interested in joining Ondati. We then spent the following few days traveling around on a motorbike visiting each girl in their home to talk to them about the school and give them a calling letter to join. Telling girls who thought they were not going to have a chance to go to secondary school (because they can’t afford the fees at other schools) that they are now going to have a chance was incredibly rewarding. Altogether 30 calling letters were given out and enrollment started on the 1st of Feb and is expected to continue until the 5th. As of the 2nd Feb 20 girls had already enrolled!

I’m in Kisumu right now, but eagerly awaiting get back to Ondati to meet the new students!