Empower 175 students for food security in Kenya

The progress in our polytechnics has been good and agribusiness club members are happy since they have been busy in their school garden activities. They have been enjoying a balanced diet in their meals with fresh vegetables from their own school gardens. They have also been earning some income through sales of surplus products from their gardens and they have been saving the money earned to cater for their club’s needs. They have been learning basic accounting and simple records keeping where they have been tracking agribusiness financial activities measuring achievements, losses and areas of improvement. Although the year started with many challenges as a result of delayed rains, the situation improved and in many parts there have been rains since April. They have been planting and harvesting various short term crops and vegetables thus making their agribusiness activities progressive. This has really changed mind-set of many youths who had negative attitudes towards agribusiness and agriculture in general. They have realized that they can be self-employed through agribusiness and actually be employers as they have discovered that agribusiness is a well-paying job through the experienced they have gained and the high demand of fresh organic farm products. We have been encouraging them to work even harder and explore more agribusiness opportunities available for them. Some of the club members are graduating from the institutions towards the end of this year and they are happy since they have already identified what they will do once they are out of the training centers. In our previous reports we had plans to improve the rain water harvesting structures and some head teachers promised to involve the parents on this matter in order to raise fund to install simple water harvesting structures in the schools. After discussion with the parents they bought the ideas and considered the issue as important but they requested more time to enable them source funds for the projects. They explained that the year started with many challenges where they had limited resources since most of them depends on farming as their main source of income. Due to loss of crops as a result of prolonged drought their financial status was negatively affected and they did not even manage to pay school fees for their children in good times. They suggested that the project be pushed to next year to allow them time to organize their financial status. The schools management did not have alternatives and they respected the parents’ requests and decisions. The schools with already installed water harvesting structures have worked hard to improve and repair the structures and they have some water now. We would wish to work with the schools and parents to realize this intervention but we can only accomplish that through the support of well-wishers. We therefore take this opportunity to request for your support as we also sincerely thank you all of you for your generous contribution. Thank you very much.