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Canada Fund chickens help rural Africa
Aug 18, 2007 By: Crystal Crimi(Originally published May 8, 2006)
In an SUV, it takes about half an hour on an almost violently bumpy road to reach Zambia’s Cinci Wa Babili Rural Development Project.
It’s the rainy season and the red soil road is riddled with huge crevasses and miniature lakes.
Driving by women carrying bundles of wood on their heads, men gripping large tree branches over their shoulders and women waiting at a roadside hut with boiled peanuts to sell to anyone travelling slow enough to approach, a nicely kept and seemingly well developed town appears out of nowhere.
“Well, welcome to civilization,” says Brother George Poirier. His home now is the Cinci Wa Babili project site, located in Malole, Mungwi District, near Kasama.
Cinci Wa Babili means, “working in partnership” in Bemba and it began in 1979. With funds from the Canadian International Development Agency, Canada Fund provided one-year financial support of $30,179 American in November 2004 to help Cinci Wa Babili start its chicken egg-laying project, oxenization (animal draft power) improvement, soya beans production and seed multiplication programmes.
The eggs make protein food available locally and some are even sold in Kasama, about 50 kms away. At full production, 800 chickens produce about 750 eggs a day. Right now, the flock is in transition, providing about 300 eggs daily.
The rural project aims to increase food and income for rural farmers and bring them up to three meals a day. Other elements include breeding oxen and cattle, teaching farmers to grow cash crops and multiply seeds, educating people about HIV/AIDS, and helping women with social economic development, which includes income-generating activities, nutrition training activities, adult learning and gender and development.
Currently, about 80,000 people live in the project area.
