Case Studies

Chilimo

New Direction of Life

		Desta Alemu, 45, lives in Chilimo and is a member of Chilimo Forest Development cooperative. She is a single mother of five children. When the Chilimo Participatory Forest Management (PFM) project started in the area, she was leading a hard life supporting her children from what she gets through selling local alcoholic beverages. When Forest User Groups (FUGs) were formed as part of the PFM process, Desta was elected chairwoman of the auditing and
inspection committee. This gave her the opportunity to attend various training programmes and workshops organized by the project. Through these programmes she learned different ways of improving her way of life.

Her first move was diversifying her maize farm plot by starting a vegetable garden. The FUG, on credit, provides seeds of vegetables to members and Desta took advantage. Assisted by the project, she uses an improved traditional irrigation scheme to get produce twice a year. From her vegetable sales she now gets 1,500 birr. The FUG also has a revolving credit scheme from which Desta and her two sons borrowed 300 birr each. They used the money to start a sheep rearing and fattening business through which they started earning at least 300 birr every other month. Desta and her family have now expanded their business to cattle fattening using other credit links the project creates.

Today, Desta is a happy woman seeing her children grow happily and with a good work discipline. She has now bought enough materials to upgrade her house and has enough savings in case of harder days. When asked about the project, Desta stated  “had FARM-Africa not started working in the area, I would not have been able to support my own children. FARM-Africa gave me a new direction in life”.

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