Gender Equality Cameroon Project #9362

Pig Rearing Project for Widows in Cameroon

by Nkong Hill Top Common Interest Group

Project Report | Apr 26, 2012
Update from Ikata Pig Project

By Heather Kathrens | U.S. Peace Corps Volunteer posted with NCIG

Aldous, myself, the engineers and the widows

Report from the field!

Ikata, Cameroon

From: Heather Kathrens and Aldous Leke

Date of Visit : April 24, 2012

On Tuesday, April 24, 2012, Aldous and I made a trip to Ikata to follow up on the construction of the pig pens for the beneficiaries of the project. We also conducted a thorough training on pig rearing mainly for the beneficiaries, but in addition to the four widows, an additional 15 community members turned out for the training, including 11 men and four other women. The four beneficiaries for round one of the project are Frida Tange, Lydia Nfor, Martha Dohnji and Mommy Lydia.

At Sister Rose Mbe’s tiny bar right on the main strip of the village, Aldous, NCIG’s agric tech, facilitated a 4 hour presentation on pig rearing, including topics such as pig breeds, feeding/nutrition, housing, pig rearing systems, disease/prevention, medications, and record keeping. Despite temperatures of almost 100 degrees and intolerably high humidity, the audience remained engaged and asked numerous questions. Aldous had initially prepared a PowerPoint Presentation for the group, as Ikata usually has electricity, however, on this day, a main power line was down and we could not use the projector. We hastily transferred the info from the slides onto some flip chart paper we happened to bring. With the laptop only having 40 minutes of battery life, we copied what we could and luckily---because Aldous is so knowledgeable in his field, the presentation went off without a hitch.

After the training, we visited the widows’ homes and investigated the construction of the pig pens. Surprisingly, several of the extra participants at the training accompanied us to the homes and it was nice to see so much community enthusiasm and support for the widows and the project. Aldous thoroughly inspected the pens and was pleased on the whole. Minor technical inefficiencies included a lack of slope to the floor of the pens and in some pens the boards were flush with the concrete floor making it difficult to sweep out. Also, each pen is lacking one of the required two doors-due to oversight of only buying four sets of hinges instead of eight. Aldous spoke to the pen builders, who assured us corrections would be made the same day.

Several of the extra participants made comments referring to ‘wanting to become a member.’ After explaining to them that this particular project is only for widows, they were directed to visit the NC4D micro-finance branch in Muyuka and make their interest known and perhaps in the future there may be a possibility of expanding the project to include more groups of people.

The next step of the project is to deliver the pigs and feed to the beneficiaries—which we have tentatively scheduled for this Friday and Saturday!

Stay tuned for more!

Sister Rose's Bar where we did the training

Aldous teaching about pig-rearing

Martha's Pig Pen

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Mar 16, 2012
Village of Ikata chosen for the piggery project!

By Heather Kathrens | U.S. Peace Corps Volunteer posted with NCIG

Happy St Patrick's Day from Cameroon? Sure, why not!

We at NCIG hope this finds you happy and healthy whatever you might be celebrating! Ourselves, we are currently celebrating the initial phases of a new round of piggeries for widows, thanks to you, one of our beloved donors, and friends. We wanted to take a minute and update you on the project of the project. Please feel free to email us with any questions or comments!

Last Wednesday, March 7th, I went out in the field with two of the NCIG staff, Gospel Anu who works in our Small Enterprise Development department and Aldous Lekeanyi who is our Agricultural Technician. We traveled about an hour north and east of Buea, to a small village called Ikata, where we know there is a high concentration of widows. The village of Ikata just got electricity last year, but there is still no clean water source. The women collect all water from a nearby stream. The main source of income in Ikata is subsistence farming--selling a few items that they don't eat themselves, such as a small amount of cocoa, plantains, cocoa yams, and cassava.

We spoke with a woman there a few weeks ago who is a beneficiary of our micro-credit program, Rose Mbe. Rose is a trusted and influential woman within the Ikata community and we asked her to contact several widows who might be good candidates for the new round of piggeries--this round is completely funded by Global Giving contributions by the way! Ikata was chosen as the site project for a few reasons. Firstly, it is an area where we have carried out micro-credit projects in the past and beneficiaries have responded well. Secondly, Rose's assistance will be crucial as a contact-she has a cell phone and most of the widows in Ikata don't. Thirdly, several women approached NCIG last year about establishing a piggery project there. This shows sincere interest and we knew we would have people who were interested in this project for the right reasons.

When we got to Ikata, there was a group of about 11 widows to meet with us. Our meeting lasted for about 4 hours. We discussed the logistics of the project, including materials and labor. We talked about the best ways to maintain healthy piglets. And we talked about how to keep the project sustainable. Wanting the beneficiaries' feedback on every aspect of the project, we asked them to help us create a better model for piggeries so that it will be able to flourish on its own someday without NCIG support. Aldous, Gospel and I also conducted a vulnerability survey, trying to gauge the conditions these women are living in.

Here are a few things we all decided together at the meeting:

1. We calculated that for each beneficiary, NCIG's cost is about $580. Our disbursements from Global Giving up to date allows us to fund about 7 widows right now, however, we are going to start with 5 and keep the rest of the funds as a reserve in case there are unforeseen expenses, such as a pig famine or natural disaster of some sort. Any unused funds will go into the next round of piggeries.

2. Beneficiaries decided that they should each 'buy-in' to the project, in order to keep it sustainable, and they decided that they should each contribute 50,000 CFA (approx $100 USD). Not all of them have access to this amount as cash, so it was decided that they could contribute material and labor for the pen as an alternative. We want to use as many local materials as possible, so this is a win-win choice. If the women choose to donate cash instead, NCIG will apply this amount to materials and if there is any money left over, it will be deposited into the piggery account in order to help fund another widow's piggery in the future. We also decided that there should be some kind of donation upon the first sale of pigs, either in the form of cash, or giving another widow a piglet to start a piggery with, to further ensure sustainability.

3. We weighed the choice of each woman having a pen built for their pigs or grouping the pigs together in one large group pen. The women decided that, given their house locations, the individual pens were better.

4. After many questions and some good conversation, we decided that NCIG should come back to Ikata in two weeks to see which of the women were still willing to go ahead with the project, subject to being able to produce the 50,000CFA buy-in via cash or materials. We are planning that trip to Ikata next week and will keep you updated.

I just want to add that NCIG has not had it's own Agricultural Technician before and the addition of Aldous Lekeanyi will be invaluable to the success of this project. He will be able to follow up with the widows on the care of the pigs ensuring a healthy return at the market. We are lucky to have him!

So, that is it for now. Be on the lookout for an update next week. We tried to attach some photos but had trouble uploading them ,so we will try to post them on our Global Giving page directly. Check it out! http://www.globalgiving.org/projects/pig-rearing-project-for-widows-in-cameroon/

In closing, thank you always for your support!

Warmest Regards, Heather Kathrens and the whole NCIG gang

Links:

IKATA

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Jan 2, 2012
Update on our Goal

By Heather Kathrens | Project Leader

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