Community Needs Assessment Form
Explanation: Matching Grant applications requesting US$25,001 or above must include a community needs assessment. Please provide detailed answers to the following questions. The boxes will expand as you type. Attach this completed form to the Matching Grant application.
1.Name of community: / Bukura/Kakamega, Western Province, Kenya.2.Describe the benefiting community. Include any relevant statistics as well as geographic and demographic information about the community.
About 50 kilometres north of Lake Victoria is Kakamega (pop. 60,000) the provincial headquarters of Kenya’s WesternProvince. The region features a world-renowned rainforest but few other tourist attractions. Although Kenya is known world wide for wildlife and beach attractions, Kakamega has a poor tourism trade. With no outside funds two-thirds of the region's population falls below the poverty line and has minimal access to resources. After the 2007 Presidential election this part of WesternProvince has been struggling to recover because of the loss of important businesses and livelihoods.
Bukura is a small rural farming community of 5,000 people situated off the main Kakamega – Mumias road, in WesternProvince. (Kakamega town is about 45 minutes away by boda boda (bicycle) or matatu (public transportation). This is a fertile, hilly area often described as Kenya's breadbasket, where tea, coffee, sugarcane, maize and other crops are grown in abundance. There is frequent rainfall, and a lot of forest cover. Bukura is populated with people of the Luhya tribe, where people speak their local dialect of Kiluyha and the national language of Kiswahili, while few speak English. Within the area, cars are few, where the most common form of transport being boda bodas (bicycle taxis) and ox carts. The unpaved roads are often washed out by heavy rains, and at such times it is only possible to travel around by foot.
People live in rural homes on small plots of land that have been handed down through generations sometimes with family members of up to 12 living on less than an acre of land trying to eke out a living. Homes are made of mud with thatched roofing, with one large room and a kitchen outside. As of now, there is no running water or electricity in village homes and people depend on expensive kerosene or charcoal to cook with.
Families live on less than a dollar a day and live a subsistence lifestyle farming their fields for food and selling some crops for money that will provide them with other needed items for their families. Health care is very limited in the area, and expensive. Schools are numerous, but due to the high costs of school fees education is out of reach for a lot of rural farmers. Primary education is free now, although parents need to provide uniforms, school materials and books. For secondary school, with fees set at approximately 30,000 KS ($440) and families still needing to buy books, uniforms, boarding costs and other supplies, this is a huge burden for families and they find it extremely difficult to afford. Families will often focus their resources on educating one child which is usually a son. Even this is very difficult with very limited opportunities to raise the necessary money and as a result many village children, especially girls, do not have the opportunity for an education to improve their life and the lives of their families beyond the village subsistence level. Farmers, especially women see continuing education as very important to improve the lives of their children and the family as a whole.
3.What community needs were identified?
A community assessment was conducted in 2004 and continuing through to 2006. This assessment all started because fish farmers were approaching Susan Thompson while she was in Kenya on a different program and asking for her help with problems they were facing in regards to their fish ponds that they had been trying to build and operate. Susan is an experienced fisheries biologist, with a lot of skill in aquaculture and employed full time with the Yukon Government in Whitehorse, Yukon. Susanhas worked in Kakamegaadministering secondary and post secondary scholarshipsfor girls and boys. As a result of her work during this period Susan had extensive contacts with Kenyan families and communities in the area and the difficulties they were experiencing providing for their families.
Families and communities have turned to fish farming to supplement their diets and income and on their own initiative some community members started constructing ponds in the early 2000's. Without some of the basic necessary skills and knowledge and money to purchase fish fry, feed and basic equipment, and because of the lack of government support and encouragement they were not succeeding. They recognized that the difficulties they were experiencing with fish farming could best be dealt with through a community initiative by organizing into fish farming cooperatives and groups.
It was decided to bring everyone that was interested in fish farming together for a number of weekend gatherings where we were able to listen to issues, gather opinions and ideas about the challenges affecting their ponds, fish, and their home and families. They identified a number of different needs that would improve their fish ponds and in turn their lives and uplift them both individually and as a community.
Meetings were held at a local school and discussion focused on both an individual and a community level about their current strengths and weaknesses, concerns about what will be important to uplift their homes and community. The information came from all attendees - especially current fish farmers and new fish farmers and was collected using many techniques including interviews of individuals at these gatherings. Because many people participated – over 100 – the resulting information is broad, accurate and useful.
What was identified as an important need was a fish farming project focusing on education, training and micro-loan support. Fish farming has a lot of promise and potential because of the great supply of water in the area, few experienced fish farmers, lots of interest in the field of fish farming and most people’s existing skills in agricultural cultivation and farming; it can be a benefit to all involved. Also education and micro-finance are powerful poverty fighting tools and help people escape poverty by giving them the knowledge and financial means to start and support income-generating businesses. As each loan is repaid, the money is redistributed as loans to others in the community through the cooperative administrative structure, thereby multiplying its impact.
Based on the meetings conducted, members of the Bukura community identified many challenges in moving forward on fish farming activities. They include the need of accessing good training, obtaining equipment, building better ponds and building hatcheries in the community that people could access close to their homes. By having the opportunity to obtain small micro-loans they can use this money to expand their ponds which will enable them to obtain a higher income and enable them to move forward.
4.What is already being done to respond to the need(s)?
To respond to the needs of individual farmers and the community, a weekend training program was conducted for a select group of interested fish farmers. After the training a visit to all farmers’ ponds was conducted to see what they had already accomplished on their own to gauge sincerity and interest and what assistance was still required. Some farmers received equipment, such as nets and pipes, and also small micro-loans were given to provide wages to build ponds or improve already existing ponds. A simple, low technological but functional fish hatchery was constructed through a cooperative community effort.
5.What resources are available locally to help meet the needs(s)?
A Community based organization was formed and all members contribute resources according to their ability to participate, and no partner can dominate the efforts simply by contributing more than others.
All materials, such as nets, pipes, buckets and fish fry can be bought locally in Kakamega town. A limited amount of more specialized but simple equipment such as hatchery trays and screens may not be available locally but Susan has the ability and knowledge to make do with what is available, just as the farmers will need to and have in the past.
Qualified and experienced trainers within the area are few. Effective training at the community level requires not only technical knowledge but experience in dealing with practical problems in creative ways. As well as providing training for new fish farmers, the focus needs to be on training existing fish farmers with more knowledge and experience to become effective trainers and to share their experience and knowledge with others. Without this training, people will struggle to boost themselves upward. With an experienced trainer and a week long program farmers can be trained and then the newly trained farmers can become trainers, share their knowledge with new farmers and the cycle would continue.
6.What opportunities for projects did you identify?
During the meetings community members identified a number of different needs that would improve their lives and uplift their community. Ideas such as access to better education, improved health care and water supply, better training in fish farming and the need for equipment and small micro-loans.
What became evident from this exercise was that that individual and family wellness and betterment is very broad and all encompassing, and truly requires holistic and cooperative community efforts.
As what happens in most rural areas community members voiced an interest in other projects that would help them in their day to day lives such as electricity, a vehicle, refrigerator system, which are fairly major projects and could not be considered.
The important process in a community needs assessment is to determine if community members have the aptitude, skills and desire to become fish farmers. Farmers in agriculture have the aptitude and many of the basic stills required. Susan’s experience in working with fish farmers from this community and a number of other communities in the area over the past three years is that most fish farmers have the interest and commitment to dig ponds and to continue fish farming activities with varying levels of success. What is needed most for continued success are more knowledge and practical support and the small financial resources to start and build the project, plus ongoing interest and encouragement.
7.Which projects did you select? Why did you select this project?
The projects that were selected were fish farming training and education and micro-loan support. Both these projects best suited the needs of the community and are the projects that will have the most potential to be successful due to the commitment of the community members and the Canadian facilitator.
In greater detail the projects were selected for the following reasons:
A. Is it already an agricultural community? Experiences with community fish farming projects has demonstrated that fish farming is more akin to agricultural farming than to open water fishing and agricultural societies are more likely to be successful in fish farming. Bukura is agricultural based and members have the necessary farming skills to be successful in the field of fish farming. Old and new fish farmersalready have the necessary interest and skills to ensure success in this project.
The community interest is there as people were already trying to farm fish, but the technical background and the resources they required were not available. With training, encouragement and support, including micro-loans where necessary, to get them started and by establishing and building the necessary support structure in the community through the next year the benefits from this project can be sustained in the future.
B. Is there adequate water in the community? A plentiful and readily available year round supply of good water is essential for fish farming. This area is blessed with many creeks, streams and rivers that will provide enough water to support fish farming on a year round basis. Western Kenya also has frequent rainfall that ensures a good supply of water year round which fish farming requires for success.
C. Is there adequate suppliers of fish feed, fish fry, program materials and supplies? Yes. Fish feed is supplied by a local distributor and he is known and trusted by fish farmers. There are a number of fish hatcheries in the region that will provide the fish fry to get farmers started until the community hatchery can be established to fill the need. Other equipment such as nets, pipes, buckets, shovels, axes, etc are all available locally and can and have been provided in the past.
D. Are micro-loans important? Yes, definitely. While fish farming requires a lot of work and in-kind contributions in terms of digging and maintaining fish ponds, some money is required to get started and until money generated from the harvesting and sale of fish can keep the fish farm going.
8.What challenges to implementation of this project did you identify? How does the project plan take these challenges into account?
While the project has many of the cultural and natural ingredients that are necessary for success as outlined above, the biggest challenge will be to build capacity in the community to maintain the training and educationand micro-loan support over the next two to three years until there is enough participation and momentum to keep going.
Ongoing success will require a continuing community-based organizational structure to provide continued fish farming education and micro-loan support to other farmers in the immediate area and coordinate such cooperative efforts as the fish hatchery. This structure is in place and continued monitoring will make this project a great success.
9.How will the benefiting community be involved in the project?
The community has already identified interested individuals who currently either have some experience in fish farming or who are keenly interested in starting in this line of work. Members of the community who have already been fish farming for a number of years will be involved as mentors for new farmers assisting them during the pre-digging stage and also providing some technical skills.
A community-based cooperative organization has been established to guide the project over the next year and administer the project in the future.
10.Describe the viability of the project and how it will be maintained by the benefiting community after grant funds have been expended.
Fish farmers will all obtain training through a formal program where they will learn about fish biology, water properties, hatchery operation, fish health, feeding, facility design, fish harvesting, record keeping, marketing, etc. Because of this training and the potential for small income-generating ponds they will be working together to maintain the project and the formation of a cooperative is the best way. Working together and helping each other is a sure sign of success. Fish farmers who are trained will act as mentors for new farmers thereby ensuring the sharing of knowledge and continued success of the program.
Farmers will continue to be members of the cooperative and proceeds from the sale of fish from their ponds will return to the cooperative in dues and the funds will be used to provide micro-loans for members and new farmers who can use the money for the purchase of new equipment, for expansion of ponds and for supplies needed to continue the project.
The members will continue to look for new marketing areas to expand their fish sales. Also the project will be used as a model for other communities in the area who have a demonstrated interest and involvement in fish farming with successful farmers and cooperative members providing the training and serving as advisors.