CorpsAfrica Volunteer: TusayiweSikweseDate:1.11.2016
Project Title: Goat HusbandryName of Village/Region: Maluwa /Phalombe
Background:
Maluwa village is a small village located in Phalombe. Phalombe was initially part of Mulanje District until the late nineties. Maluwa is headed by Group Village Headman (GVH) Maluwa and apart from Maluwa there are 4 other villages that the GVH reigns over. However, Maluwa alone consists of approximately 4000 people. The village has two main religions, Christianity and Islam. The Christian religion consists of several several denominations, with the main ones being the Roman Catholic Church and the Presbyterian.
Maluwa village has one community day secondary school called Chisugulu Community Day Secondary School and it is a government run institution. Students from villages within GVH and other villages far from Maluwa attend Chisugulu. The nearest primary school is located inMwanga village, which is about 15 minutes from Maluwa. There is also a nursery school which is run by the community and it currently has 40 registered students.
For most of the villagers, farming is main source of income and their cash crops are pigeon peas, sunflower, soy beans and maize. Maize is mostly used for household consumption and sold when they have no other source of income at hand. Maize is grown twice a year, first during the rainy seasons together with pigeon peas, sunflower and soy beans and later during winter using various irrigation schemes. Some villagers trade their pigeon peas for plastic ware in Mozambique (the northern part of Phalombe borders with Mozambique) and resell the plastic ware in Maluwa and other villages. Others sell their pigeon peas and sunflower to companies and individuals in Limbe and Blantyre, which are 1hr30mins away from Maluwa village. A small percentage of the villagers sell clothing items and household materials at a market that is 10 minutes away from Maluwa and another market at a village that is 1 hour away from Maluwa.
Project and Need Statement:
Phalombe is a district that is vulnerable to extreme weather. It experiences heavy rains that often result in heavy floods and it also experiences droughts due to the bare landscape.
Both weather extremes have resulted in the community members of Maluwa village harvesting little or nothing at all. Since the community is largely dependent on farming they are left destitute, with very little to eat and nothing to sell as a source of income. Although this is the case, those that do goat husbandry are able to buy food, pay school fees for their
children and buy other necessities after selling the goats even after both weather extremities. They sell either goat meat or sell the goat alive. With the weather situation in mind and the highest priority need identified after a series of meetings, a good number of the community members proposed goat husbandry as a solution to the need of an easily manageable but alternative source of income.
The community members further proposed that orphans, those looking after orphans and vulnerable households should be the beneficiaries of the goat husbandry project. These beneficiaries will benefit in that they will all have goats for meat production and they will be able to make their own compost to use in their farms. The main reason why the community members chose goat husbandry is because goats are easier to raise than any other livestock, they are less likely to get diseases and their feed is not hard to find as they eat most vegetation and can eat crop residues such as pigeon pea pods and maize stover. They also said that not only would they be able to sell the goats when they are ready but they will also be able to use their droppings for their farms, thereby cutting costs of buying fertilizers.
Both men and women will have control over the goat products.
Decision-making day: Some of the men that were present at the community meeting where they decided on the goat husbandry project.
The community suggested other projects including a hospital, boreholes, small business loans, and seeds but settled for goat husbandry because it was the project that met the expressed priority needs of the beneficiaries and could help in many areas of their lives.
Project Design:
The project will start with the Community Based Organisation Volunteers identifying the initial 90 beneficiaries, of which 45 will receive goats and work with another beneficiary as a pair. The beneficiaries will be identified from all 5 villages that are under the rule of GVH Maluwa. The CBO in involved with identifying the beneficiaries because their main work relates to the beneficiaries and so they have records of people with the criteria we have used for identifying the projects beneficiaries. The CBO also has experience with identifying beneficiaries for a project like this. They have records of those who should benefit because they already benefited in a similar project and can identify other potential beneficiaries. The CBO will be further tasked with the role of assisting MrJamali (Chairperson of the Village X committee) with ensuring the sustainability of the project by assisting with the monitoring of the project. The original plan was to involve the Village Development Committee (VDC) who would have then liaised with the CBO, however the VDC is going through leadership issues and are not appropriate to steer the selection of the beneficiaries.
Village / Number of beneficiaries identifiedMaluwa / 22
Mwanga / 20
Selenje / 20
Chakuma / 20
Simoko / 8
The number of beneficiaries identified from the villages is contingent upon the population of each village. All 90 beneficiaries will be briefed on their expected contribution towards the project. They will be given documents containing information on all requirements before and during the project, which they will be asked to sign as an agreement. The 90 beneficiaries will pair up and they will be expected to help each other take care of the goat that they will receive as a pair. The reason behind this pairing from the start of the project is so that they all gain experience in raising goats from the very beginning and for them to have a sense of ownership.
Pairing up from the early stages of the project is important and necessary to avoid arguments between the pairs. A similar project was once implemented in the community a few years back by a non-‐governmental organisation that once worked in the village. The organisation tried to reach out to 60 people by dividing them into groups of 15 with 5 goats per group. All the beneficiaries were expected to take care of the goats in their respective groups and to share the goats once they kid. Unfortunately the project did not go well as members of the groups were unable to cooperate and many of them did not pass on the kids to their group members. Therefore our plan in this project is to use the pairs and focus responsibility on two rather than a group.
All 90 beneficiaries will be required to do the following;
●Build housing for the goats. The pens will be expected to comply with a standard that will be able to weather the rains, easy collection of goat droppings for making compost and to keep the pen clean for the goats’ health.
●To contribute K1000 towards buying the goats and K500 for transportation of the goats.
The people that will closely monitor these stages of the project are MrJamali (he is the one most closely involved with planning this project) and the Chairperson of the CBO. Once these stages are complete, I will be responsible for buying the goats and transporting the goats together with the Village X committee chairperson. I will also be responsible for keeping record of the receipts of all transactions.
The beneficiaries will be trained by a community member who has adequate knowledge and is well skilled in goat husbandry.
The goats will be purchased once all housing is completed and all contributions have been made. The goats to be purchased will be local does from another village in Phaloni (it is 50-‐ 60km away from Maluwa). The beneficiaries will be responsible for finding meat bucks for breeding within the community. It would be ideal to buy younger goats so that the beneficiaries can learn more about goat management and be better prepared for kidding. The younger goats are also less expensive compared to older goats that are about to kid.
However, older goats could be bought depending on the market prices on the day of buying the goats. With goat prices currently ranging from K15,000 to K20,000 , the price stated in the budget is for medium sized goats that are most likely nearing the kidding phase.
in case the goat dies or is barren, the beneficiary pair will also be responsible for assisting each other with buying another goat or goats. The pair experiencing this will report the issue to their CBO volunteers who will then inform MrJamali, this way everything will be put on record. In addition, the beneficiaries will be required to contribute K100 every month for the sustainability of the project. The money will cover the cost of buying other goats in the case that one dies and also cover the cost of vaccines. The money will be kept by MrJamali.
To further ensure sustainability of the project, MrJamali assisted by the CBO will visit the beneficiaries every 3 weeks to check on the goats and the housing. If goats are not found orif any of the beneficiaries fail to account for their goats, they will be required to either pay for the goat or buy another goat to replace the one they cannot account for. The K100 contributions will not be used for situations like these. This will affect the pairs should it happen before the initial goat has bred. It will also be a requirement for them not to sell all the goats once they kid. For example; if the initial beneficiary’s goat has 3 kids one will be given to their partner, that means the beneficiary will have 2 kids plus the mother doe and they will only be expected to sell one of the kids after raising them both and not both of them at the same time.
Groups of women also taking part in choosing the community project.
Monitoring and Evaluation
The first major indicator of the success of this project will be the other 45 beneficiaries getting a kid when the other goats breed. Another indicator the success of this project will be the collaboration between the 45 beneficiaries that will receive the goats and the 45 that will be waiting to get their goats once the initial herd has kids. The two groups are expected to help each other with taking care of the goats. Participation in this cooperative activity will be monitored part of the evaluation process for the success of the project. The health of the goat (s) will be monitored throughout the year every two months by the CBO volunteers.
Participant’s willingness and ability to use the goat droppings as compost for their crops this coming farming season will be a minor indicator of the success of this project. Spreading the compost onto their fields is expected to increase crop production and the success of this aspect of the project will be the yield of crops harvested. Post-‐harvest questionnaires will be administered to the beneficiaries to see whether they made compost for their crop fields using their goat droppings, how much they harvested if they used it and how the 2016/2017 yield of harvest is different from the 2015/2016 season. The evaluation will be conducted by the Village X chairperson with the help of the CBO committee.
Like most livestock, goats cause environmental degradation as they eat vegetation and can also damage the community members’ crops as they are left to graze on their own without goatherds. To ensure that the goats do not destroy the communities’ crops, it will be required of the beneficiaries to keep a close eye on their goats and build goat housing that is durable and far from their crop fields. Mr. Jamali, a CBO volunteer from each of the villages and I will visit the selected 90 to evaluate the suitability of housing. We will check the roofing of the housing to ensure that it will not leak during the rainy season, that the walls are strongly built and will not be blown by the winds and that the floors are sound.
The following summarizes a few of the key indicators of success:
Objectives / Indicator / Source of DataTo increase crop harvest for crops that do well with goat manure / A Positive difference in the yield of 2016/17 from 2015/16 crop yield / Household questionnaires and focus group discussions
Increase food security for the beneficiaries / The amount of food kept for household consumption / Household questionnaires
To increase their source of income / The profit made from selling the goats / Household questionnaires
Budget:
Item / Unit Cost / Quantity / Amount Needed / Community Contribution / Total Cost / NotesHousing building materials / $10.40 per housing / 90 / $936.00 / $936.00 / The beneficiaries will source their own materials as part of their contribution
Goats / $25 / 45 / $1,000.00 / $125.00 / $1,125.00 / The goats will be bought from another village that is 2 hours away from Maluwa. On community contribution there are 90 beneficiaries each contributing MK1000
Transport / $98.45 / $76.55 / $175.00 / Transporting the goats to Maluwa from Phalombe . Possibly two trips. The 90 beneficiaries will contribute MK500
towards transport
Training / $5.55 / $5.55 / $5.55 / Training to be conducted on raising the goats, meat production and compost production.
Vaccine / $17.50 / 1 / $17.50 / $17.50 / For all the goats.
Other costs / $70 / $70 / Important emerging costs.
TOTALS / Amt Needed / $1,191.50 / $1,137.55 / $2,329.05
Community / $1,137.55
TOTAL PROJECT COST / $2,329.05
INDIVIDUAL PROJECT M&E PLAN
PROJECT TITLE: Goat Husbandry
Volunteer: TusaSikwese
Date Submitted: 16.11.16
What is the Objective/Goal? / Sample size / What is the indicator of success or progress for each goal? / What exactly is being measured? / What is the source of the data? / Who is collecting the data? / How often is this data being captured? / What outcome is desired -‐ what is the target for this indicator? / What is the baseline or where are you starting with this indicator?1 / All beneficiaries use goat manure for fertilizer / 90 / Production of manure / Amount of manure produced / Observation / CorpsAfrica Volunteer / Every two months / 100% of the
beneficiaries producing compost / 0
2 / To increase crop harvest / 90 / Positive difference in the yield of 2016/17 from 2015/16 crop yield / Crop yield / Questionnaires / CorpsAfrica Volunteer / Twice a year / 70% increase in crop yield / Crop yield measured before project begins
3 / Food security for the beneficiaries / 90 / 2aThe amount of food kept for household consumption / The number of bags/ buckets of food / Questionnaires / CorpsAfrica Volunteer / Twice a year / 80% increase in food kept for household consumption / Measure of bags/buckets of food prior to project beginning
4 / To provide an income generating source / 90 / The beneficiaries selling their goats/goatmeat (after 2years) / The profit from the sales / Questionnaires / CorpsAfrica Volunteer / Twice a year / increase in their household income by 40% / 0
5 / To develop a saving habit among the beneficiaries / 90 / The amount of
money being kept in their goat husbandry bank / Amount of money / Observation(rec ords) / CorpsAfrica Volunteer / Monthly / Increase in savings by 40% / 0
Focus Group
Discussions / Every three
months / 0
Questionnaires / Monthly / 0