Poultry Project
Since March 2017, SKIB assisted 43 participants (14 males, 29 females) with feeds, material to construct poultry houses and day-old chicks. Approximately 4977 chickens have been produced to date (November 2017) which translates to BWP248,850.00 in cash.
Project Progress
Broilers
Most of the chickens are sold to the neighboring villages such as Nata, Dukwi, Mosetse, Sowa Town, and Tutume. The participants use the earnings to assist their families to supplement food ration buy clothing, etc. Some have opened bank accounts mainly to save. To enhance production, Skillshare International Botswana organized training in the production of broilers. Dukwi Chicken feeders started with 200 chicks per batch, by the end of October they bought a batch of 600 chicks.
One member of the 3 ladies keeping broilers, Kelebile Dube who lives with physical disability, pointed out that her life had improved after joining broiler keeping projects. “All the money that I get after sharing profits I invest it in my micro lending business. I charge 20% interest on the money I lend out. I know can support myself and my only daughter.” said Kelebile.
Another participant, Charlie, indicated that she was happy with the progress of the project since they started with only 50 chickens, but they have since progressed to 175 chickens by November 2017. They were able to attain that by reinvesting the funds.She said they were optimistic that in the next batch they would order 200 chickens. After attaining their set target of maintaining a batch of 200, they intend to prioritize saving for the business by sharing the profits.
Layers
The layers are kept by three males and one female but do that on individual basis. Income gained by an individual is used mainly to supplement the UNHCR food basket and to expand the businesses. They were assisted with feeds and chickens. Like mentioned above, they sell in the camp and to the host community (Dukwi village). Sharon Nyerinda (below), the daughter of one of the farmers takes care of the chickens when her mother is away. “Our goal is to get money from the project so that I can further my studies,” said Sharon. Thiwe, Sharon’s mother said that after attaining a target of 200 layers she will start saving money for her daughter to go for tertiary. She had 70 layers by the end of January 2018.