One aspect of Leadership council training involves the members of the leadership Council selecting and implementing a project using $1,500 in seed money provided by us as part of the training.
In the village of Viard, the leadership Council chose a Poultry Meat Production project. Two hundred chickens and supplies were purchased with the project money, and a small, basic coop was constructed.
They have raised three batches of chickens so far and are now raising 250 chickens at a time, which is the most they can do given size of the coop. As of November 6, 2019, they have sold 550 chickens for a price of $3.12 US, each, for a total profit of $250 US (profit of $.46 per chicken sold).
More training is needed to help them reduce costs, as they should be making $.96 per chicken. Currently, they purchase feed, which is more expensive than growing/grinding their own. We are investigating costs associated with purchasing a corn-milling machine.
“The feed is very expensive. We would like to start milling our own feed.”
“With this project, the men and women are working together. The men are taking care of raising the chickens, and the women have started small businesses by selling them both within the village and in other villages. The demand is greater than what we have. We have four new vendors waiting to buy chickens to sell.”
“Before this project, we had to go to Cap Haitien to buy chickens, but now we can raise and sell them here. The money stays in the village to boost us.”
“The greatest benefit of the poultry is that villagers get food for less and transportation isn’t such a problem.”
A project like this furthers our goal of nurturing self sustaining communities for the families in the villages where we work. We are grateful to donors who support our education/training and agricultural programs. Their gifts make it possible for us to fund and implement this type of program.
