Providing assistance to rural Villages that has beneficial lasting effects is extremely difficult. Much money has been spent and wasted on projects that have good intentions but no results. Charity organizations have gotten very clever in recent years in diagnosing impediments to success and implementing programs that have a much higher chance of success.
In this program we funded a project that created gardens, reduced domestic violence, and created a rural banking systems.
The banking system was needed because there are no banks in the rural areas and what banks there are in the city have such high service fees that it eats up almost all of the modest savings that rural people put their. This program created 50 rural Banks that use boxes such as this. Each box has three locks and is kept at the house of a fourth member of the village that doesn't have access to the locks. Villagers agree to the rules of banking and of distribution. Its benefit is that it allows the villagers to save and then to collect interest on money that is loaned out to other villagers. It also has a monthly payroll deduction program that allows villagers to accumulate money. The end result is to give the villagers a system of money management that will allow them to accumulate funds to make capital improvements on their farms.
Also as part of the program about 100 households were taught how to manufacture and develop small keyhole gardens on their property. This allows them to raise vegetables during both the rainy and the dry seasons. This also allows them to create seedlings that can be transplanted elsewhere
This is one of the villagers that created the keyhole Garden. It allows her not to make the 1 1/2 hour one way trip down to the city vegetable market.
The third part of the program here was to reduce domestic violence. This was accomplished by sending trained volunteers into a 100 different village homes. Over multiple visits they educate and train the households to avoid violent confrontations in their homes. Violence is a particular problem in his rural communities because of the stress brought on by the extreme poverty.
This is another farming operation where an entire Village operates a community farm. We supplied them with farming implements, water pump, a water tank, and seeds. Prior to the farm creation 14 of the villagers came to the NGOs headquarters for training on a proper farming and nutrition standards.
In this picture the villagers had just created a a compost bin.
This is the farm they had created. It is about 2 acres in size. They hope to grow enough for themselves and then to sell some at the roadside Market.
This is their seedling growing area.
The director of the organization who did all training noticed this fighting rooster in the village and purchased it for $30. He added it to his collection of seven roosters that he fights every weekend. If your rooster wins you get the losing rooster that you eat if he's too damaged or that you bring it into your fighting stable if it can be healed. Also if you win the fight you would win the bet that you put on your chicken. Cockfighting is a huge thing here. The government even licensees it.
Cheryl got it sit by it on the way home.
It was nice to see a little beauty in these rural villages.
This is another project with keyhole gardens. In this garden they have already transplanted one half of the seedlings.
This is a terraced farming area that this seedlings are placed into
We started our second semester of English classes. This time around we have four classes. They each met twice a week for 1 1/4 hours. Three intermediate and one basic classes. We start out with about 40 students in each class and then that number levels off to the low twenties throughout most of the semester. This second time around is much less stressful for us.
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