With new opportunities for collaboration with Hope Africa University (the University), the Free Methodist Church of Burundi (the Church) and Friends of Hope Africa University (Friends), this year we have tried to create more awareness of the Haley McCready Outreach and Development Fund and its impressive agriculture development work in Burundi. We know that we have a very good news story to tell. We recently had an article published in the Light and Life magazine; see Intergenerational Collaboration Amid Global Change – Light + Life Magazine. With greater awareness, we hope to receive more donations, and with more donations and more opportunities for collaboration, we know we can do much more and do much better.
Burundi is one of the poorest countries in the world. Our agriculture development projects consist of a self-help association of poor, vulnerable women and engage in crop cultivation, animal husbandry and microfinancing. With our one-time, start-up grants, the project associations and beneficiaries become self-supporting, self-managing, self-governing and self-sustaining. Our projects are successful, long-lasting and alleviate poverty and improve the lives of our beneficiaries and their family members.
This year we have received a significant donation from a Sunday School class and a Men’s Action group. In addition, we recently received a donation from a church. Gifts of $1,500.00 or more, allow us to provide our one-time, start-up grant to an agriculture development project and associate it with the donors that made the donation; we can then report back to the donor/s and allow them to follow the progress of their project.
A Special Church Donation
Many of you know Dr. Barbara Rose, her long-term work at Robert’s Wesleyan University and her service work in the United States, Burundi and other countries. Dr. Rose has served on the Board of Friends of Hope Africa University and worked with Hope Africa University for many years. She also been a strong, long-standing supporter of Haley McCready Outreach and Development Fund and she has been an adventuresome visitor to many of our agriculture development projects.
Using her own knowledge, experience and photographs, Dr. Rose recently developed a PowerPoint presentation on the Haley McCready Outreach and Development Fund (HMODF) and presented it to her church. Subsequently, the Sandstone Congregational Church in Jackson, Michigan donated $1,500.00 to the HMODF; enough money to provide our one-time, start-up grant for a new Church Sponsored agriculture development project (see the Project Summary Description below).
We are so grateful to Dr. Rose and to the Sandstone Congregational Church. I was recently in Michigan and I was able to attend their Sunday morning meeting, given the opportunity to briefly describe the HMODF and our agriculture development work and to thank the Church for their donation.
We are hoping that by having more donations of $1,500.00 or more that we can have more agriculture development projects that are designated as Sponsored Projects with identified or anonymous sponsorship.
A Sponsored Project; a Church Sponsored Project
Cultivating Crops and Breeding Pigs for Vulnerable Women from Mushanga Colline in Murwi Commune, Cibitoke Province; Sponsored by the Sandstone Congregational Church, Jackson, Michigan
Project Manager: Celestin MUTONI
Celestin is a Graduate of the Hope Africa University Agriculture Program. He was selected by the Free Methodist Church of Burundi and received a two-year scholarship from Friends of Hope Africa University. Celestin is a Pastor at a local Free Methodist Church. As a local Pastor and an Agriculture Program Graduate, Celestin will visit the project frequently throughout the cultivation seasons and he will train the beneficiaries to use more productive agriculture methods and better methods of caring for animals.
Project Secretary: Charlotte NDAYISHIMIYE
Charlotte is the Secretary of the Administration Direction for Hope Africa University. She previously worked in the office of the Academic Secretary. Charlotte was a Computer Sciences student at Hope Africa University and she now holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Sciences from the Institut Superieur des Technologie of Bujumbura.
Introduction
The Province of Cibitoke is in the northern-west part of Burundi. Murwi Commune is one of the six communes in Cibitoke Province. The Project Manager grew up in Murwi Commune and experienced how life was so hard for different families. Many of them were vulnerable families and lived a very tough life by cultivating and trying to get work in in other people’s fields so that they might get paid, which is called gucumukozi in Kirundi. They also do this because many of them do not have their own land for living. They have to work for others in order to survive.
In Burundi, agriculture and farming is not only the main source of income but it is also the main source of food for Burundians. Though hardworking, but because of the lack of land and low income, many families in Murwi Commune cannot really help their family. Seeing them struggling, made the Project Manager feel that something had to be done but with what? When he heard about the Haley McCready Outreach and Development Fund and how it has been helping, he felt that this could be an answer for some of these vulnerable families. Therefore, he thought about developing this project. With this project, he believes that the ten (10) vulnerable women will break the chain of poverty by working hard together and becoming self-dependent and self-reliant. By working in unity in a highly participatory fashion, it will prepare the members to become self-supporting and self-sustaining. The goal here is to encourage all members to keep the bond strong and the association active so that the project can reach out to more women and start an extension, replication project.
Developing the Association
This project intends to gather ten (10) vulnerable women from Mushanga Area within the TURIHO Association (meaning We Are Here). After the women have accepted and signed the association agreement, they will participate in three sessions of training on social cohabitation, savings and loans and income generating activities; participation in these sessions will be required for every beneficiary. After these sessions, the women will be ready for the project to start. They are bound to work together in the association. The association members will elect their officers for the good organization of the activities. The association will be led by the President, the Vice-president and the Secretary-treasurer. Their main duties will be to plan and prepare the weekly meetings, facilitate participation of all of the association members and address daily issues and coordinate the daily activities of the association.
After electing the officers of the association, the Secretary-treasurer will be given a register book to record the minutes of each meeting. The Project Manager will do his best to back check all the minutes to understand together how the activities are running. In such process, every activity that will happen in the association will be easily known. Once they are set together to work as an association, they must know that they are already one; they will win together or lose together. Each one of them must give out the best to the team.
During field visitations, the Project Manager will continuously counsel the women about teamwork and the benefits that derive from it. The field visitation will happen at least once a month. To strengthen the association members, together with the officers, the Project Manager will organize different sessions for building capacities. These sessions will be beneficial to the women because they will provide important skills relevant to their self-sufficiency, self-governance and self-sustainment. Also, the weekly meeting will reinforce and strengthen the relationships between the beneficiaries and the project association.
Cultivating Crops
To initiate crop cultivation, the project grant money will be used to rent two fields of about 2 hectares; one half of each hectare for cultivating corn and the other half for beans and peanuts. Through capacity development trainings, the beneficiaries will learn higher techniques of cultivating corn, beans and peanuts. All the beneficiaries will work together by preparing the field and taking care of the crops. For all of the harvests, 50% will be shared with the beneficiaries, 10% will be saved for seed and the other 40% will be sold and the money will be kept by the association to support ongoing crop cultivation. The association will use the money to rent the suitable land, buy fertilizers and other needed materials to support ongoing crop cultivation and to become self-supporting and self-sustaining. For additional income, the association members will be encouraged to work for other farmers and split the income between the association and the women who participated in the work.
Breeding Pigs
After the crop cultivation function has become self-supporting, the association will use the second installment of grant money to purchase five (5) female pigs for the association. The beneficiaries will be trained in better methods of caring for pigs. The 10 women of the association will be grouped into five groups according to their neighborhood and receive one pig (for every 2 women) and commit themselves to feeding, caring for and protecting the pigs from thieves as their contribution to the pig breeding function. Grouping the beneficiaries into two by two will facilitate the feeding of the pigs.
Later, when the pigs reproduce and multiply, every woman will receive a piglet to own and raise for their household. As the association and the association members have more pigs, some will be sold to produce much-needed income for the association and the women and their families.
Microfinancing
The project will organize an internal, self-help microfinancing group for income-generating purposes. In the beginning of the microfinancing, the start-up amount of one hundred thousand Burundi Francs (100,000 BIF) will be used to help the beneficiaries to start getting the loans. This amount will be kept on the bank account until when the beneficiaries understand the income-generating activities to initiate. The interest free loans will be paid back. For microfinance development, every beneficiary will contribute 500 BIF per week for the ongoing activities of the self-help microfinancing group. These activities will develop the capacities of the association members and allow the women to generate income for themselves and their families and, thereby, help them become more self-supporting.
Please keep the Haley McCready Outreach and Development Fund in mind as you are making your donations this year. Your donation will be a direct investment in agriculture development for poor women and their families in Burundi. Please keep in mind that with permission, donations of $1,500.00 or more can be granted to a designated Sponsored Project with identified or anonymous sponsorship. For Sponsored Projects, we will provide information to the donors to allow them to follow the development and progress of the Sponsored Project.