Home \ Project News \ It Takes Some Effort to Change Situations for the Better
The project started on the 1st of May 2015 and will run until the 31st of October 2016.The program aims to improve the health of 100 children through improvement of nutrition and sanitation through a community effort. The project engages the villagers in vegetable planting and breeding of chickens, furthermore training them on child development, nutrition, sanitation, hygiene and environmental protection. The project focuses on building the capacity of the community.
Project manager Ren Rong tells about her experiences from running the project.
“ My
name is Ren Rong I started working with this project on the 1st of
May this year 2016. My greatest challenge was trying to mobilize the community
for different trainings. At the beginning attendance in trainings
was so disappointing. Many villagers did not attend the meetings except for
those who had received something from the project such as chickens and
vegetable seeds. I was very concerned and started asking those who did not
attend what the problem was. They all had the same response: ‘Why should we
attend since we don’t get anything from the project, what is so important in
attending those meetings? I understood their grievances and why they were thinking
like that, but this didn’t pull me down. I mobilized them to attend one meeting
where I addressed all of them and explained the criteria we had used to select
and give some households chickens and seeds while others didn’t get anything.
It was not that we liked the selected families more than others, but we looked at
their situation in terms of income and food security, we also looked at the
health-status of these families. Everyone understood and they showed remorse
for their actions. From that day many people started attending and
participating in either trainings or cleaning actions we carried out in the
villages.”
What changes has Ren Rong seen in the community she is working in?
“As
a project we gave chicken to the families and we made a follow-up,training them
in how to take good care of the chicken. I am happy to say the chickens are
laying many eggs and I see most families’ nutrition has improved for the
better. We still need to train the families on having a proper timetable for
feeding the chickens.The chickens are giving many eggs and some families sell
the extra eggs while others haven’t organized what to do with the eggs they
can’t consume themselves. We will help these families to find ways to sell
their eggs, at the same time we plan to train the families to use a variety of
cooking ways to make the eggs more delicious instead of eating eggs cooked in
the same way everyday. We have helped the families also in planting vegetables.
Now each household has a small patch with vegetables. We also introduced quinoa
which is a new food crop in Butuo. We hope the quinoa will grow well, so that families
can use it as supplementary food. Due to the trainings and cleaning actions we
carried out in the village the families have adopted new habits of cleaning
their homes and surroundings. Now it is more common to see people dressed in
newly washed clothes. Some who have toilets also practice hygiene because they now
understand that they should clean their hands after using the toilet and
understand that they should not defecate somewhere in the open. Children’s
growing environment has improved and also their nutrition status, now we can
see more healthy children playing in a clean environment. “
Each household has a small patch for planting vegetables
Meetings are held to discuss different issues
Quinoa, introduced for the first time in Butuo
This project is funded by New Zealand Aid Programme (www.aid.govt.nz). Content in this article reflects the views of the authors and not necessarily those of the funder.