Hey all, the following is a letter Stefan wrote home requesting financial support for implementing a project in his village that will lead to a sustainable source of income and protein for village members, heightening food security.
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"To my family, friends and loyal readers on the far side of the world,
I write to you today with what humility I can muster to ask for your
assistance. This is the first - and will be the only - time I come
before you in this fashion to request outright financial support for a
Peace Corps project here in Zambia. If it made economic sense, I would
gladly ship you all out here with shovels in hand to show the people
of Mwanachama the commitment of my countrymen through a physical
display of ardent manpower. But alas, you all have your own
responsibilities and obligations on the home front and, unfortunately,
it is not just willing hands and open hearts which we need. No. Above
all else, the project which I have helped set in motion in this
village needs materials - 50-kilogram bags of cement, feed, water
drums, iron roofing, lumber, tools, hired vehicles - materials which
render this effort cost-prohibitive without outside help in the form
of hard capital.
But make no mistake; outright aid does not work. No lesson has been
more clear during my past year spent in Africa. I have seen water
towers slowly rusting in the courtyards of schools where children line
up to lower a dirty plastic bucket into a well for a drink. I have
seen decrepit hammer mills lying in a pool of soot-black machine oil
like some slain metal beast as the villagers across the yard pound
maize into flour with mortar and pestle. I have seen borehole pumps
missing their handles with metal placards on the side still legible
reading "A Gift From the People Of Japan," though years ago people
broke open the cement casing and now use the hole as a shallow well.
How many times have NGOs interrupted segments of the evening news to
flash photos of emaciated children with distended bellies rummaging
through garbage piles across your television screen? How many times
have your heartstrings been tugged asking for your "dollar a day"? I
do not intend to follow this paradigm. I do not think true
philanthropy can be achieved with a guilt trip. Whether you choose to
accept this appeal and give to this project what small token you can
manage, or whether you decide this is not your battle to fight, I will
understand. No one ever can or ever should tell you how to feel about
these issues, or what constitutes "enough." I simply write to you
today to testify on behalf of this project as one of its architects,
to share my optimism for its success without promising it, to vouch
for the organization which will be implementing it, and to leave in
your lap an opportunity to, in a small way, improve the lives of those
who have much less than you do. What you decide to do when these words
run out is your business and your business alone.
The Story:
Mwanachama Multipurpose Cooperative Society is a 34-member male and
female farmers co-op based in my village. It is comprised mostly of
maize farmers and vegetable gardeners, with some members endowed with
technical skills such as bike mechanics, carpentry, blacksmithing and
charcoal making. I have worked with several of them on projects
relating to agriculture - mostly gardening and composting - and one
man in particular, Patrick Kabaso, has become a close friend of mine
through our casual work interactions.
Ba Patrick is the secretary for Mwanachama Co-op, and together with
the chair and vice-chair, he approached me several months ago with the
idea of starting a poultry project which would generate income for the
organization and provide greater food security to the village. I sat
in on several preliminary meetings with the co-op executives and
general members, and developed a rough idea of the scope of this
project. Collectively, the co-op decided to raise 300 broiler chickens
in 16-week cycles and to sell them both locally in the village and to
truck them to Mansa to be sold in the open-air markets and at local
restaurants. In addition to the nutritional and income generating
aspects of the project, what piqued my interest initially was an
opportunity to vastly expand my push for conservation farming and
organic vegetable production in this village with the use of chicken
manure.
I have been hawking organic agriculture since the day I set foot in
Mwanachama, and this past growing season I cultivated all of my maize
using the pungent brown cake from a poultry farmer operating on the
outskirts of town. But where farmers were enticed by the prospect of
saving money by cutting down on their inorganic crop inputs, they were
repelled by the logistics of transporting that much chicken shit. I
would pass them on the road coming from the poultry farm in Senama
with a 50-kilogram sack of manure on the rack of my bicycle and they
would just shake their heads. And I understand why. These men and
women break their back every day fighting back the jungle in order to
eek out a livelihood and literally put food on the table, and I can
see how any added labor inputs would be out of the question. But to
have a reliable, perennial source of organic fertilizer right here in
the village - a stone's throw from the fields where it would be used -
would cure this aversion completely. And so, this project is
multifaceted, and has the potential to feed and economically empower
many people, as well as make a pivotal stride in championing organic
farming.
The co-op executives decided on a plot of land owned by a fellow
member where they will build a poultry house with all the fixings - a
cement floor, iron roof, limed and painted mud-brick walls, windows
for light and even a small office building in one corner to store
records and supplies.
Multiple budgets were written and then re-written, and I embarked on
the task of finding the money to pay for it all. Every Peace Corps
Volunteer in every participating country has access to one-time
funding source called the Peace Corps Partnership Program (PCPP)
Grant, whereby volunteers solicit funds from friends, family members,
former co-workers, religious groups, schools and others to pay for a
small development project of our choosing. The maximum amount we are
allowed to request is USD 4,000, and the total cost of this project
will be just over USD 3,800. The money will be raised in a dedicated
Peace Corps account managed from its headquarters in Washington, D.C.,
and when the total requested amount is reached, will be transferred to
a Zambian bank account in my name. I will then work with the co-op
leaders to spend the money as outlined in our budget submitted to
Washington, and to account for every last kwacha by means of
collecting and logging receipts. Finally, a completion report will be
submitted to Peace Corps Zambia headquarters in Lusaka before I
complete my service here in April of next year, where I will compile
all financial records of the project's implementation and at last hand
all control of the project over to the co-op."
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