By Odo Effiong | Project Director
Although this is a first quarter report for the project and should cover the period September 9th to December 9th 2018. Since it was our first time on the platform we decided to wait to see how much would be finally received before finalizing the plans and the budget. The funds that were raised on the platform during our initial campaign finally arrived on the 29th of October and was just above 10% of the total sum desired. Work on the project commenced thereafter. We therefore decided to restructure the project to commence from November. This report essentially covers the period from the beginning of November up till now.
Our first task was to restructure the implementation plan to accommodate the fact that we raised just a little more than 10% the total sum required for the hundred households we planned for. We therefore had to find a way to plan the project to accommodate a reduced budget yet still accomplish its goals. After several meetings we decided that our best option was to implement the project in phases. Each phase would require funds to be raised before implementation. Essentially the hundred households would be divided into groups starting with an initial twelve. As each class proceeds beyond the early intensive phases of training, allocation, planting into phases that require monitoring and control, the next group would be started. Each group would run its own two year cycle. We decided that this would actually make the project easier to manage and will reduce the risk of mistakes as each group would have lessons learnt from the last included in their training, processes, monitoring and control.
After agreeing to the plan we now had to restructure our previous budget based on this phased system. This was challenging because not every expense scales down linearly. We found this to be particularly true of our agricultural inputs. We therefore held meetings with our agricultural consultant and facilitator to restructure the budget. We had to confirm the variations of the costs of the various inputs in order to accommodate them in the revised budget. We also had to receive his input as to which crops were suitable to plant and in demand for the dry season.
During this time, we communicated with our partners for the financial literacy component and reaffirmed their participation in the project. In this last week we commenced sensitization for enrolment of the beneficiaries in preparation for enrolment (see photo). We are also in the process of drafting the agreement that enrolled beneficiaries would sign.
Over the next few weeks still in December, we plan to complete draft project documents forms and templates for various processes required, conduct and complete enrolment of the pilot group of beneficiaries, ensure they have an understanding of what is required from them and get a sign off on the required documents, purchase the inputs required for project start off, inspect, and finalize the sites for the cultivation of the crops.
All components that require significant time commitments from the beneficiaries including technical and financial training, crop cultivation, value added processing etc all start from January 2109. As we have agreed that we may struggle to hold the attention of our beneficiaries during the festive holiday season if we commence these now as it is traditional for many to travel home to spend time with family.
Thank you for your attention and continued support.
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