Mike O'Leary Trust Travel Bursary 2010

This August, Martin Breen, a third year vet student in UCD and this year's winner of the Mile O'Leary Trust Travel Bursary, travelled to Uganda to visit VIVA's animal traction project in the east of the country. His brief was to look at the impact of the project on theindividual farming families.

Martin has just now published his report on the trip which can be viewed here or in the viewer below. According to Martin, the most signifcant impacts of the project has been a reduction in the labour needed to cultivate the land, an increase in land tilled and increased yields from crops like cassava and maize. The extra income generated by the surpluses prduced is going to pay for education expenses or being re-invested on the farms.

VIVA would like to thank again the O'Leary family for their support for this valuable initiative.


Uganda 2010 report - Martin Breen

A Ugandan family prospers

We recently received this report from Dan Bazira (Heifer Uganda) on a visit he made to one of the families involved in the VIVA-funded project in Kumi District which involves providing oxen and ploughs to the Koelei Amora Ican farmers group:

Traveling to Tilling Village in Kadok Zone, Kobwin Sub County, Kumi District in Eastern Uganda, one may think that the narrow paths are a clear indication that no people live in this area. It is a surprise to find that there are such people: the middle aged couple of Hellen Adek, 43, and Charles Opolot, 53, who have been married for 26 years and have 10 children (6 boys and 4 girls), all in school.

A smiling lady dressed casually welcomed her guests with a statement: " Each time I hear Heifer friends are visiting us, I am always delighted, along with my family members. Who ever knew that we would host visitors from within the district, across Uganda and those from outside this country? Heifer has made us who we are today " .

The story of this creative family began in 2006, when as a family they decided to join a community based farmers' group within the area. The group had come together to carry out communal digging rotationally with the aim of addressing the food insufficiency that families were facing. Hellen said, " This was actually more labor intensive than we thought, for we were still using our hand hoes to open up land maximally to a tune of one acre per family." The group, Koile Amora Ican Project, approached Heifer International Uganda, through their well-focused leadership, for any support to address their plight.

Through a partnership with VIVA Ireland, funding was secured to support this community with an Animal Traction Project. " Little did we know that families like one of Hellen and Charles Opolot would turn out to be a creative family with what seemed to be a meager support," said Dr. Joshua Zimbe, Regional Extension Services Supervisor.

A change of the family's history of misery, food insufficiency and a lack of education for the children of Opolot came to reality when they started being trained by the project extensionist. " With Heifer-tailored training, you start off learning before any live gift is given," said Charles Opolot. In 2008, the family, along with three other families, received a complete set of bulls and ox-ploughs to help them open up a larger acreage of land for agriculture.

Today, Opolot's family has not only looked to the gifts they received, they have also diversified to other livestock species like sheep, goats and poultry. Each family member fully participates in the complete management of the affairs of this project. Last season, the family harvested over a lump sum of 10 tons of maize, cassava, millet, groundnuts and sorghum from approximately seven acres of land, which were opened up using the oxen given. Incomes are now assured within the family, children are going to better schools and nutrition has greatly improved, according to Hellen Adek.

" To ensure that we have enough food for the family throughout the year, we have set up five local granaries to store our produce around our homestead " , Charles Opolot said. To the community this is a creativity that was not common within the area and now some of the families have adopted this technique of post-harvest handling.
" Heifer International and their partners, VIVA Ireland, have done us great in terms of addressing our genuine need; we are really appreciative of this support " , concluded Charles Opolot.