Tiko program: Preventing hunger and malnutrition

It is our great pleasure to report a total success of this project – thank you all so very much! The sum of $7 800 has not quite been reached, but we – due to the excitement of the target population, have already spent some $ 9000 and have declared the end of the project. However, since these villagers come to Tiko once a fortnight, there will forever be requests for more help, but basically, they can continue on their own, as the items needed can mostly be made from materials, which tend to be available in the villages.

Here are the numbers: our students from 2007, i.e. the volunteers who wanted to learn about the care for AIDS patients were 37, but we have 84 households, more than double, who managed to set up all four activities, in 20 villages. 75 other households have only the clay stove and outdoor kitchen, 65 have set up a pigeon kraal, and 56 have started to breed rabbits, but 140 have vegetable rings, the heart of the matter and our hope of the future: we hope to all make organic compost, humus and Vermiliquid (= wurm urin or wormcast, which is used as fertilizer and pest control in one - tests are running), which go with building a vegetable ring, and aggregate these at Tiko and sell them to Lusaka or neighbouring countries.

If you consider that the survival package would cost $ 250, if we bought and brought every single thing to the villages, then you will be impressed thinking that there now is a value of 84 x 250 = $ 21 000, thanks to their acceptance of our ideas.

If you have followed what we were doing over the years, you may ask why they did not do these things much earlier, since our information was out there – 19 steps out of poverty for the subsistence farmer was written in 2014. But you see, we had to change a mind-set. People here in Katete are especially traditional, and you know about Aboriginal people in Australia or the Inuit in Canada, who have very different ways and are not so easy to join the Western type of development.

People are traditional, which means they believe in the past. Everything from the past is good, everything new is suspicious. And Zambians have had especially little contact with people from overseas, mainly because of malaria. But we must admit that it was not only our cleverness that made them change – the near tragic situation of the economy and the ills of agriculture at the moment made it quite clear that vegetable grown at home is a clever idea, when there is next to no maize, which is the only thing they call FOOD.

That they are truly living with their believes we can show you when you come – the ghost dance of the Nyao, the girl’s dance when they come of age, the Kulamba end of August when the chiefs of the 12 million Chewa in Malawi, Mozambique and Zambia pay homage to their Paramount chief just ten km from Katete, Yet, you would not know that they firmly believe in witchcraft when you meet them, as friendly and as generous as they are. Come and join the Tiko family, even if for 3 days only, on the way to the arguably best game park of Africa, South Luangwa.

But mainkly, come and see how much your help changes lives of the people at Katete.

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Tiko asked from January 2023 for help with a development project that would improve the nutrition as well as the livelihood of small-scale farmers. We had to inform you that with the rainy season having come extremely late, we could only get started in June, but in October we could report proudly that the villagers had taken to the ideas vigorously, truly unheard of in the past. From the 32 vegetable rings we had expected, we found 29 after only 6 weeks.

There were only 32 active health workers (home based carers or HBC) and 5 retired ones that had learned about vegetable for AIDS patients in 2005, but we now have 95 households fully involved, 40 of them with three vegetable rings, just three months later. Whether they made these three rings themselves or with their neighbors, they were entitled to help with a pigeon kraal, a rabbit warren, a clay-stove for mini-pieces of firewood and an outside kitchen with it, as well as for help with a private woodlot. Tiko is paying for the items that must be bought, the villagers do the rest. It came to pass, though, that for some tools Tiko agreed half, if the watering can or an axe were made in the village and cheaper than in Katete shops.

40 households are about to start pigeons and 40 more are requesting such help.

24 are about to be ready for parent rabbits and 68 want to start.

25 have a stove and 59 have requested that the Tiko builder start with the base of the kitchen, so that now, with rainy season ongoing, the clay stove does not melt.

Discussion indicated that a woodlot for the village was not going to work, unless there was an existing small forest that now would be protected. To our surprise, at our evaluation visit middle of December we found 24 private woodlots plus another four places with a fence and 34 interested farmers, a truly impressive result. The idea with small pieces of firewood from one’s own trees had become attractive.

The biggest result has to do with nutrition, however. In two past projects with children in the villages, where Tiko asked what the families had been eating the day before, the results was 98% Nsima, the famous maize pap or maize porridge. This time, out of three food groups, maize was only 50%, while vegetable was 20% - fantastic progress.

Also, 67 out of 95 had bought or sold something project-related from/to neighbours, which is not customary. 66 out of 95 said they had been thinking of the need for a shop – the way to agriculture as a business seems to come into being.

Tiko has spent more than was projected as $ 7,800, namely $ 9,400. Tiko would love to continue the project and ask for another $ 5,800 to meet most existing requests. There are many more people from other areas – 30 people rang in, when we mentioned the project in our radio time and 7 new areas were found, who would love to get started.

Also, it was clear from the outcome that other tricks, Tiko thought to have been teaching for years and years, did not get heard. Nobody mentioned that they were eating Moringa vegetable, but 23 mentioned beans. Had they added Moringa to that meal, they would have had the complete protein, which could be added to soya 3% and would have increased the protein eaten with Kapenta dry fish (meat was only mentioned once, namely goat) at 8% to 11%. – In comparison, all the Tiko crew of now 64 grow Moringa trees at their homes.

If we could ask for another $ 1 for presenting each household in the 35 villages that were helped by Tiko, with two Moringa seedlings, that recipe would be noticed. Villages differ enormously, but on the average, they have 40 households, so 35 villages would have 1,400 households. If we could distribute the seedlings at the end of the project, you can be sure that there will be again an improvement in the balance of the diets. We will evaluate our efforts every three months and report.

As mentioned above and since the program lets us develop our longterm vision transparently and freely, we think about increasing the donation goal in 2024 - we hope you stay with us and the projects that will follow. 

For now, with ever so many thanks
Elke and the crew 

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