Piggery and Fish Farming Improving Family Income in Twashuka

Nkonde Mwila and I left at noon to visit Twashuka, an area in rural Mukonchi. Nkonde is a fieldworker for DAPP in charge of community groups called Village Action Groups (VAGs) surrounding three schools. We were on our way to visit George Ndashe and Bornface Chisenga two beneficiaries of the Child Aid project’s income generating activities. George is preparing to receive one large-white sow and Bornface is preparing to farm fish.

15 households will benefit from piggery and fish ponds in Mukonchi by the end of this year. In the next year another 45 will benefit from piggery, and then 135 in the last year of the project. By the end of the project 45 will benefit from fish ponds.

After an hour of biking though grassland and small forests, we arrived at George’s farm, a small brick home with a tin roof alongside an open hut for cooking and a raised goat shelter.

“Muli Shaani?” (How are you) I greeted him.

“Bwino, bwino madame. Ula landa icibemba! (Very fine, Madame. You speak Bemba!) he replied.

“No, no. Panoono. Nde sambilila icibemba” (No, no. Only a little. I’m learning Bemba).

“Ishina lyande nine Vera. Niwe ani ishina” I asked (My name is Vera. What is your name?)

“George Ndashe”

After this typical greeting we all went to see the temporary pig pen he’s constructing to receive pigs. Even the temporary two-roomed brick pen looked sturdy and he had reinforced it with some wood pegs. I could see that he is very committed to the program.

George is a very active in his community since he’s the VAG coordinator for his village. He’s been identified by the Community Agricultural Committees as a viable farmer that can benefit by beginning piggery and had to apply for a loan to receive pigs which included preparing a budget, conducting a risk assessment as well as making strategies to minimize them.

“I expect a lot of profit from this. I have made a budget and I’m going to construct a better pen, much bigger than this one with concrete on the floor.” George responded when asked how he will benefit from beginning piggery.

George was also eager to show others in his community how to follow his example: “I will be passing on this loan to three beneficiaries who have not yet benefited from any income generating activities.” After asking George some more questions about his preparation to receive the sow from DAPP Nkonde and I moved onto Bornface’s farm.

Bornface appeared to be a viable and hardworking farmer. As we through his farm together, I could see many rows of eggplant and rape (a local green leafy vegetables) which he grows in addition to his staple crops. Bornface’s first fish pond is 5m by 15m complete with clay soil heaped around. Grass is growing out of it to hold the soil to hold the soil in place. He is only awaiting the fingerlings (baby fish) and has already started constructing another fish pond.

In spite of his hard work preparing the pond, Nkonde and I noticed he was missing a barrier and drainage system to prevent the fish from falling over the edge of the pond during the rainy season. Nkonde and I left having realized that Bornface is also a highly capable beneficiary who could use some additional knowledge.

So far I have identified that farmers in the VAGs can benefit from some written pamphlets to ensure they have access to high quality information so that they can properly care for their livestock and manage their income generating activities. I’m noticing that EWB volunteers can humbly bring a new perspective to their projects so that they better serve their intended beneficiaries.

Progress and Persistent Problems: Rural Health in Mukonchi

Mathew is a doctor at the Mukonchi Health Clinic. I was fortunate to receive a tour of the clinic from him last Saturday. With one clinic to serve a population of 28 000, I could tell that he is a busy man.

The clinic is one of the best maintained buildings in all of Mukonchi—second only to Catholic Church and its parish. The infrastructure for other buildings especially the rural schools is in a dilapidated state. School benches are missing and the chalkboards can be impossible to read from a distance.

Since Zambia is one of the African countries most affected by HIV/AIDS I asked him how the clinic was managing the epidemic.

“For all those tested, less than 5% of people are now testing positively for HIV. That is less than the percentage testing positively in the past” he happily reported. The government announced last month the overall rate of infection in Zambia has declined from 17% to 14.5%.

The most common illness the clinic treats is malaria. Last year, there were hundreds of new cases every month with over 600 cases one month. If I understood him correctly, there weren’t any deaths from malaria and that was a surprise to me. I plan to go back to ask him if the clinic used to experience any malaria related deaths and what happened to produce the change.

Despite this positive impression I was getting, the clinic still faces challenges. “Sometimes there are some problems when we want to buy equipment or other things” Mathew admitted. “We don’t have a lot, but we are doing the best we can.”

Another challenge concerns education especially with community awareness to encourage behaviour changes. Meghan, a Canadian volunteer for Student Partnership Worldwide is working with her Zambian partner Rachel doing HIV/AIDS and sex education at the Mukonchi High School. “Some people just don’t want to wear condoms…It doesn’t help when people think that Jesus doesn’t want them to wear a condom either!” Meghan said laughing, though I sensed the frustration in her tone.

On the front of maternal health during and after birth, some women still don’t plan a supervised birth. In a conversation with a nurse at the clinic, she regretted to inform me that one woman died last week from a returned placenta during birth. She didn’t plan a trip to the clinic, gave birth at home and bled too much before she could be rushed to Kabwe hospital.

The situation is improving however as more and more women are coming weeks before they are expected to deliver. The clinic even has a guest house for them complete with an outdoor kitchen so they can cook their meals. On the other side of the clinic is an outdoor pavilion where mothers can bring their babies to be vaccinated every week. Last week there was a large crowd of over 50 mothers with their young babies waiting for them to be vaccinated.

I left sensing that the hard-working doctors and nurses at the clinic were making progress in Mukonchi improving people’s health. At the same time, when some people are more than 30km away from the clinic and have no means of transport, preventable deaths occur. Health emergencies that could be handled in an urban setting such as complications at birth remain a problem in rural areas.

Can DAPP be in Kapiri Forever?

Last week, over one hundred community members gathered together late in the morning forming a semi-circle sitting on the grass on a sunny day outside the Makafu Basic School. They were awaiting a donor visit from Fredrick a young representative from Humana Holland and Renee, the Country Director for DAPP, a tall, good-humored former teacher in Denmark. This was the community’s chance to show off the activities they’ve been spear-heading since DAPP began working.

I arrived by truck with Gontley, the Child Aid Project Leader for Central Province, Matimba and various government officials. We took our seats on school benches in front of the community. Following introductions, the Coordinator for a Community Agricultural Committee (CAC) stood up to announce its activities highlighting the committee’s role implementing pass-on loans of chickens and goats, as well as distributing nutritional packages to be planted (consisting of cowpeas, maize seed, soy beans and groundnuts) for vulnerable farmers.

The Community Vet rose to address the crowd to discuss his training from DAPP and his responsibility for vaccinating livestock in 20 villages. Next, the Pre-school teacher from the Child Development Committee talked about the pre-school children receiving early education. She was followed by an Out of School Youth Club leader who reported on the activities that are keeping youth active, motivated and away from drug abuse. Finally, we were entertained with a dramatic sketch on DAPP’s role in promoting access to clean water and sanitation.

With all these changes the community was deriving I started to understand what community empowerment looks like. Complimenting the people’s efforts Renee stood up to address the people: “You have already made history in your communities!” With a wide smile on his face he added, “now the future is in your hands.”

Certainly the community must actively participate in the changes that improve their well-being, but to what extent? Earlier that day in a brief meeting with Mr. Mazumba, a representative for the District Commissioner for Kapiri Mposhi he was thoroughly appreciative of the changes he’s seeing in the district. I anticipated his appreciation in the presence of a donor, but what caught my attention is that he asked for DAPP to extend its work in Kapiri. He explained that “the government doesn’t have the capacity to provide these services to the people.” Mr. Mazamba’s comment instantly brought my mind back to a stakeholders’ meeting the previous week with the district counselor for Mukonchi. The counselor rose from her seat and she said with determination that “DAPP will be here forever! I promise that!”

Leaving his office, I couldn’t help but wonder if the changes DAPP was facilitating right now with the active participation of the community will be sustainable. From all the speeches from community members working together in various committees to educate each other I can see that structures are being set-up at the grass roots level with the potential to transform people’s lives, but will they continue to operate without DAPP’s presence with fieldworkers to help organize and motivate people? Or without DAPP providing any more material inputs into the project?

At the moment there are many participating villages in the Child Aid project, but not all the villages in Mukonchi and Mpunde districts are included. Extending the benefits to them eventually seems imperative, but what can the government do if it lacks the financial resources and administrative capacity? Since non-governmental organizations don’t intend to stay permanently, the government and the community must work together hand-in-hand for a brighter future. Identifying and building the community’s and the government’s capabilities and assets (including financial, particularly with the government), and then determining what their respective roles will be seems like the big challenge ahead.

Life in Nsokoshi Village

I arrived in Nsokoshi village in the Mukonchi area last week at night to live with Grace Kasali, a fieldworker for the Child Aid project. I wasn’t sure of the layout of my new home for the next three months since my head was turned towards the sky. I could not take my eyes away from the seemingly endless number of stars above me (probably making the sight of a “muzungo” in the village—the local word for white person—even more strange).

I proceeded to a small, three room house with a tin roof where my host family brothers, Brino and Trivo sleep. We ate nshima (white corn flour cooked with water until it’s a sticky paste) with beans as the relish for supper—which is so far my favorite relish to eat with nshima—as the family chatted in Bemba.

I answered a barrage of questions about Canada, how it compares to Zambia and how long it takes to get to Canada by ship—and I had no idea about the answer to the last one! At the end of dinner, I pointed towards a water-colour painting on the wall with a picture of an African village reading “The village life is to hard to maintain” and asked my host family mom, Miss. Lubemba if she believes what it says. Miss. Lubemba laughed at the painting then said to me "Ah, but it's true!"

Shortly after supper, we started getting ready for bed. In the village, with no electricity people adjust their schedules based on the sun so it’s perfectly normal to go to sleep directly after eating. Grace led me to her hut, about 15 meters from the main house with a thatched roof and I wondered if she still slept there in the rainy season.

In the morning, I could finally see where I was and admire the traditional architecture of the Bantu tribes and their artwork in the style of clay paint on the outside of Grace's hut.

As Grace and I went to fetch water, we passed her older sister home and I discovered that Grace lives within an area of about 100 hectres with extended family all around totaling around 120 people. This kind of living arrangement is common. Children shyly watched me from a distance. For many children it was the first time seeing a white person.

The community is fortunate to have a clean water source with a tube well located about 100 meters from the house. After fetching water the family and I listened to the news on the radio and ate breakfast on a straw mat outside the house.

Chewing on a delicious yellow sweet potato I wondered, is what I’m seeing poverty? How vulnerable is Grace's family? Are they unhappy? I stared up at the sky and contemplated the difficulty defining who is poor and what is development.