Key people: Doris Nkausu, Lemon & Grace Nkausu
Lemon has been in and out of hospital for most of the year with blood pressure issues and an enlarged heart. Please pray for him and his wife Grace who also has not been well.
All this has put a lot of pressure on Doris to step up with all the programs but she has done very well in this. There are two ladies in Doris' church who have been faithful this year in helping her with the programs, especially the farming training. She is going to continue to work with them and hopes to include them in a more official capacity in the partnership in the future.
There are now 30 orphans remaining in the program who get help with school fees and school requirements. Six orphans completed Grade 12 last year and are now looking for things to do.
Grade 10 to 12 - 5
Grade 8 to 9 - 11
Grade 7 - 14
There are some struggles for the ones in Grades 10 to 12 as they have to travel into town each day to get to school, or rent a small place in town to live there.
Doris was concerned for the ones who had finished school that they would get involved in smoking, drinking and pregnancy as they have no work to do, so she is setting them up with gardens at Patience to grow tomatoes for the dry season (currently a box of tomatoes is selling at 230 ZMK (US$20) which is a very good price). Then in the rainy season they will have a field of maize to work on.
The chicken project has currently stopped due to very high costs of the feed required for the birds meaning there was no profit. They intend to convert the chicken house into a rental property so they can receive consistent income from the building.
They also have the fields for the orphans where they harvested a lot of maize (1 lima) and some soybeans (1/2 lima). They are yet to shuck the maize and shell the soybeans, and will get the orphans to come and help in the work when they are on break from school. Once that is done they will let us know the yield they achieved.
Last season they trained another 10 guardians of the orphans. Added to the other two groups of eight previously trained this means they have now trained all the guardians of the orphans on the program.
The 10 trained this year farmed 1 lima of maize together but did not do so well. Doris was supervising and they started out well but failed when it came time for weeding. Their yield in the end was 10 bags of maize (2 ton per ha).
The other 16 who were trained in previous years worked on their own farms and they did very well. Doris is going to collate the yields and let us know.
They would like to hold another training course this August so that people can get on with making compost. They will retrain the 10 from last year to help encourage them with the methods. Next year they are wanting to expand the program and start training other members in the community.
The guardians are very pleased to receive the farming training and understand that this is helping them greatly to send their own children and vulnerable orphans to school.
1) Pray for Lemon and Grace's health
2) Praise for the way Doris is continuing on with the programs
It was great to see these guys again and how they are continuing to impact the community and orphans through farming training. We will visit the two new ladies who Doris has been working with next year.