|
Case Studies
Chilimo
Changing Lives: Big
changes from small investments
Finding new income
sources
Since
the start up of the participatory forest management (PFM)
project in Chilimo, alongside the development of new
forest management systems, different livelihood
initiatives have been supported. The aim of such work is
to supplement the efforts to decrease illegal and
unsustainable forest use.
These interventions have been carried out with
beneficiaries from communities dwelling in and around
the Chilimo forest.
One
such activity is small scale improved poultry farming.
The FARM Africa project carries the work out with the
Debre Zeit Agricultural Research Centre and the Dendi
District Agricultural Development Office. The
introduction of improved poultry to poor and forest
dependent households started in 2003. The basic approach
is to introduce day-old improved breed chicks, and to
train the owner how to look after them with a minimum of
management.
24
households were selected to try out this initiative, 16
women and 8 men. People were selected based on household
economic weakness and income dependency on sale of fuel
wood. The community selected the appropriate people
themselves. Debre Zeit Agricultural Research
Centre’s Poultry Unit, who supply the
day-chicks, also backed the intervention by running
basic trainings on chicken management.
Changed Lives
Abebu
Megerssa, 28 and a mother of five, is one of the women
who was selected to participate by her community
colleagues. Her life was dependent on fuel wood
collection and sale. Abebu and her husband Degu became
members of the new Chilimo forest management group when
the project started. Membership of the forest management
group entitled them to participate in the new income
activities promoted by the project.
After
attending the poultry training, Abebu was provided with
25 Fayomi breed day-old chicks on credit.
|
|
Abebu
managed her chicks as best she could, following the
training and learning through experience. From the first
25 chicks, 12 grew to chickens. They started laying eggs
within 6 months. Abebu was able to sell the eggs and
this gave her and her family a new income.
Abebu was able to settle the credit loan to the forest
management group, Since completeing the repayment Abebu
has been generating an average of 6-7 Birr (50
pence) |
|
per week from the sale of eggs. This weekly income is
enough to cover her family’s basic expenses for salt,
coffee, sugar, and cloths for her children. Abebu
told us that before the poultry intervention her
children had never eaten eggs, she said ``now a child
who wishes to eat egg can even have it every day``.
|
Abebu
has also saved some money from her egg sales, and has
now constructed a new chicken house. She also renews her
chickens from time to time, buying new with young
chickens, and selling the older ones. She has told the
project staff that the days of fuel wood sale for her
and her families’ survival are over.
Happy
with her new income and her new life style, Abebu shared
her new out look on life; “the number of chickens you
have and the amount of income you generate are directly
related to your own effort to improve your livelihood.
It is possible for a family like me, with no land for
cereal production, to generate reasonable & stable
income with affordable investment.”
Read
about the Chilimo project >>>
Other
case studies from Chilimo
Cabbages
and school >>>
New
direction of life >>> |
