Poultry I started on 2014-2015. I come and realized that the project is picking up
and then my neighbors now come and gain from me. I started forming some small
groups, women groups and youth groups. In Kenya, small-scale family farming is hard work
with meager and often unstable returns. In West Pokot province, women are taking
a lead role in improving the income of their farms by adopting poultry farming.
While the men in the community prefer to herd goats and cattle. Women in this
community are not valued. They are being called children. They have nothing to
possess in their family. The men have changed that mentality they have seen
that they have realized that even us women, we have contributed to the economy
of the family because when we sell eggs, you can also get something children will eat. As a
mother now, you cannot come under and stay at home without doing anything. I started
from two hens and one cock, after one year I was having like around 150 hens. What made
us to come up with this project of poultry keeping is that women are
table banking that is where women are saving and loaning
out money within themselves. So we saw that when you are saving every week you
need to have something that generates money. We get to know the importance of
poultry keeping from my OAIC training. My name is John Gichimu.
I work with the Organization of African Instituted Churches in the program for
Theology and Ministerial for Mission but I also assist in the program of rival
homes and food security. We train some people from churches who were nominated
by churches and build their capacity to grow and train you know in the
churches and community. So when the OAIC wanted someone to go and to be
trained so they called me because I was always talking about agriculture in the
church. I came to mobilize my people to start
keeping poultry because I saw that it is very this is very easy. It has quick results
of profitability. We saw that this thing here is making us also proud in the
community. It also boosted our self-esteem as women.
So far, we have like 500 members. Women and youth groups. And we shall be
able to come up as a community.
Christ came that we may have life and have it abundantly.
Through poultry farming and other initiatives of its food security program,
the organization of African Instituted Churches is training leaders and
strengthening the ability of local communities to increase incomes and crop
yields and to access and afford food in sufficient quantities and quality.
Your contributions to the Mission and Service Fund of The United Church of
Canada help make programs like this possible. Thank you and please continue
to give.