Report from BHW Zambia Partnership Facilitator Following Visit

Key person: Charles Chibale

Recent Events

Pre-school Programme

Currently there are 52 children aged 4 to 6 who are attending the preschool programme at the Skills Training Center. The teacher is still Tyson Masonda who has been obtaining good results with these children. He is the son of Samusent who is part of the eldership of the church where Charles attends.

Guardians and parents are asked to fund a uniform for the children to attend. This is important because they want the young children to feel attached and equal with each other while in class. Material is purchased and Memory Mwansa, a former tailoring pupil, makes the uniforms at a cheaper price.

We asked why the preschool was so important to the development of the area. Charles is convinced that the best way to help change mindsets of poverty in the area is to be working with the children and youth. “If we can influence the thinking early that will be a great help to the young chaps future”. Many children are not given the greatest of starts in life, with insufficient nutrition and mental stimulation, causing development of thinking to be somewhat lacking.

That is why programmes such as the preschool programme are so vital to help stimulate the young ones minds. 

Health Clinic

The Skills Center is still being used as a health clinic where mothers bring babies for checkups and vaccines.

The village had got together to make bricks to build a proper clinic and had even received a donation from a politician to make a foundation which they completed. But then the government officials said that they could not do this without the current government's blessing, so they stopped the programme.

Foundations for Farming

Two farming courses were run in 2018, 34 farmers were trained in April and 39 trained in July. They were all trained in maize, cassava, ground nuts and soy bean production.

The uptake of the method is still slow. The main reason for this is fishing as the area is full of people who make a living from this. When considering farming, people see that they work a long time and then all the income comes just at certain times of the year, where at least with fishing they get a little bit all the time when they catch and sell some fish.

A project called Total Land Care, which teaches methods similar to Foundations for Farming, has also reached Kaishe. Charles has been able to get alongside them and they work together in training people for farming. This government programme also has access to free farming inputs which they give out after training. One new crop they teach is rice growing which five farmers started growing last year. Crops have been good with 1 lima (50m x50m) producing 6.5 bags of shelled rice. They are able to sell this in the community for around 350 Zmk (US$30) per bag.

Charles was sick this year from September up to March so was not able to follow up as many farmers as he would have liked and also struggled to do his own crops. 

However there are still some great results happening in the area. Overall for cassava it is estimated that with the better management of planting on flat land, and correct spacing, the crops have increased by 60% to 70% for most people trained. This makes a big difference to their food security.

We talked to a few farmers who on average were getting around 18 to 20 bags a lima or about 4 ton per hectare of maize.

Previous years trainees were given an orange tree seedling at the end of the farming training to help them with some fruit. Charles tells us he has been surprised as many of the trainees have come to him to give him some oranges saying “here are some fruits for you, I have been able to harvest and sell to traders and get a little something to help with living costs”.

The community is considering putting together a market place where they could sell farm produce which would help provide better cash flow for farmers.

Charles is still farming using FfF methods and one thing the people call him is “The measured farmer”. This is because he measures everything he plants with ropes and measuring tape to make sure spacings are correct. He has also said to the people if anyone removes the grass and left over crop residues from his field by taking or burning he will take them to court to sue them, as he wants that material for mulch and adding organic matter into the farm. The photo above right shows straight measured lines and mulch. 

Malaina Trees
These are now growing well and will be ready for harvest for timber in about 8 to 10 years. They plan to expand the area from the initial 3 limas to increase the size of the planting. They get the seedlings from the seeds dropped by mature trees in the village and transplant them to the field.

The next job on the trees is to slash the grass after the rains stop. 

Pig project

They currently have eight pigs that they are feeding with maize bran and other food stuffs in an effort to create some more income for the Skills Training Center.

Personal Stories

Rosemary Muneka

Rosemary attended the farming trainings in 2017. She is a bit suspicious of the new methods but thought "well let me try just a portion".

Her crop is cassava and she has planted a small portion with the new method on flat land and measuring the distance between the cassava sticks rather than just random poking in the ground on very large mounds (we call these graveyards as they will make people poor!). 

She says so far she doesn’t like the fact that she has to weed so much as it is too much work. 

She planted a small plot last year and another this year. Last year’s plot is coming close to harvest so she is wondering what the result will be compared to the traditional methods.

Frances Masonda (white shirt)

Frances and his wife Petronella have eight children, the eldest is now 24 years old and the youngest is 9. They also have four grandchildren. He attends the Roman Catholic Church and is a prayer leader and pioneer (meaning a teetotaller).

They live close to the Kaishe Skills Center with a plot for farming a few kilometers away. He used to be a fisherman but is finding that increasingly difficult to make a living as the area is being overfished.

He attended a farming training and has been trying to implement some of the methods on his farm. Last year he planted 1 lima of maize and harvested 12 bags of grain which is 5 bags more than he would normally get! He saw that he didn’t do a good job with weeding so is focusing on that this year.

He also has a field of ground nuts and cassava which is doing very well. This is how he is funding his family to eat and send the children to school.

He has been helping the Skills Center with the pig project by building a fence and with the Malaina trees project. 

Current Issues and Challenges

• Convincing people that farming is as good an occupation as fishing
• Charles' health

Prayer and Praise Points

Praise for the obvious impact the former carpentry and tailoring has had on the area as the ones trained have made a big difference with doors, roofing, furniture and clothing now available to the people of Kaishe.

Comments

Kaishe is still a place that is very deeply oppressed by a poverty mindset but thinking back over 13 years of returning here you can see many improvements for people. It was great to hear Charles talk of these as often he seems so discouraged but this time he was really reflecting on how things are progressing "panono panono" (little by little).

We will keep the budget the same here, funding the preschool and three farming training courses for the next year.