Well we have been here a week, what have we been up to?
So much has gone on and things are moving quickly. The first thing to report back is that we have been able to meet with all the 14 families of our sponsored disadvantaged children and are delighted that we are able to support all of them with an income generating project, some are doubling up with their nearest neighbour which has made it possible to get them all on a project. Part of the reason for this is that in some of the families the only adult is an elderly grandparent, by working with someone else it makes running a project easier for them. It also helps to build a community spirit which is something we are really trying to promote.
Some families are going to be doing broiler chickens, while others prefer to do goats. We have been busy sourcing and buying goats, we now have 15 ready to get the projects underway. Those doing goats have either somewhere appropriate to keep the goats already or are building something ready to take their goats. We should be giving the goats to some of the families on Tuesday 29th, with the rest as soon as they have somewhere to keep them.
We are collecting 50 chicks next Thursday, 31st March and will start the chicken project training on Friday 1st April. The training will be done over a 6 week cycle, the families will train with us here on how to look after the chickens from chicks to the point of selling. About 3 weeks into the training they will then start their own projects as well, with our support. It’s very exciting to see the projects taking shape and we praise God that all the families will be on a project.
Around the home we have also started to work on our own projects and those to help the Trust. We are expecting to take delivery of an incubator in the next few days. This will help us increase the amount of Roadrunner Chickens, Turkeys, Ducks and Quails that we have. These are used both for food to sustain us but also for us to sell to bring in income. We also will be keeping a few goats ourselves, starting with 1 male and 2 females and will be building a small enclosure to keep them in. Breeding goats and increasing the poultry will in the long term feed into the projects so that we can help more people.
We have also built two small fish tanks, 1 x 1000l and 1 x 800l, just using stuff we had lying around the homestead. An old blue fibreglass skip was used for a shell and we bought some fish safe plastic to line it, the other tank is an old plastic water tank in its metal casing. We are hoping to keep Bream and in time be able to harvest for us to eat and then increase the tank sizes and then be able to harvest to sell.
An area of the garden has been cleared and we have started to sow Tomatoes, Sweet Cabbage, Rape (English Giant) and Peppers. We are looking for other vegetables to grow and hope to be given some seeds or seedlings from locals, as well as buying as and when they become available. We are hoping that the late heavy rains we have had are over now as many people’s crops have been ruined by too much rain. It’s a difficult balance here, either no rain or too much all at once. Again we are growing vegetables to both eat and also to sell.
Pictures to follow, due to poor internet connection it’s not always possible to upload photos. We will have another update next week.
Ratidzo Trust 