Dairy Goats

Recently Nderingo and Deo roamed around neighbouring districts, venturing over 200 km away from Karatu to buy goats. They'd find several in one location, load them up and travel together to the next location. Bit by bit they gathered up 100 rambunctious goats and made their way back to Karatu. CPAR Tz is supporting rural women's household nutrition and income-generation through distribution of 80 dairy goats and 20 male goats (beberu). So far, 80 women have undergone training and taken possession of dairy goats. They are sharing the male goats. Each woman will provide training and pass on her first born female goat to another woman, and so on and so on and so on...

Until now, goats have been owned by men. With this initative, women are busting through the gender barrier with full support of the men who know that resources in the hands of women benefit the whole family.

Latest Scoop on Rainwater Harvesting & Sanitation

Construction is completed on the rainwater harvesting tanks at Shauriawak Primary School. The school has already planted a few seedlings in anticipation of having access to water. Community members dug the pit for the ventilated improved pit (VIP) latrine, and now the fundis are lining it with rocks. Kind of a grueling task but very effective in preventing latrine cave ins during the rainy season.

UMATU Centre Update

It's a lot quieter around here since Team UMATU departed, but UMATU's building is progressing very well. We were discussing landscaping ideas with Shabani today, while UMATU members were doing education outreach at the Counselling and Testing Centres at Karatu District Hospital and District Health Centre.

Many hands make light work!

Things were buzzing at the UMATU work site today! UMATU and our wageni (guests) carried bricks, many many bricks, and hauled sand. The builders among us learned from Shabani a simple yet effective method using water and a string to measure the bricks and make sure the walls are even. A lot of work was accomplished. At this rate, these buildings will be finished in no time!

What a Day!

Our guests from Canada arrived today, fresh from climbing Mount Kilimanjaro. UMATU sang and danced up a storm, showering them with bright red Bougainvillea petals to welcome them to Karatu. Energy was high, the sun shone brightly (it's winter here now so this was a good thing) and everybody had a moving, wonderful time. After meeting UMATU at their temporary office, we all walked, or danced, and sang down the road to visit the building site. There we met Shabani, our master builder, and he is ready for those who want to build to meet him at the site tomorrow morning. The rest of us will visit schools and farmers. Stay tuned.

Chickens!

We've started a demonstration chicken project at the office with 10 indigenous hens and one indigenous rooster. In only two months, they've produced plenty of eggs and 3 hens have hatched 26 baby chicks. There is a common notion that in order to have productive chicken husbandry it is necessary to start with at least one "improved" rooster. We are demonstrating that the key to healthy chubby chickens is to feed them nutritious food available locally, provide a safe environment to protect them from predators and, very importantly, make sure they get medicine in a timely manner to prevent diseases.

And the walls went up!

Well, not quite but they're on their way! We visited the building site today and are so impressed by the quality of the work. This is going to be one fine-looking building. Our 40 visitors arrive next week and they are looking forward to participating in construction activities so at this point we don't want the work to move too quickly.