Region: Africa
Author: Ukimwi Orphans Assistance Trust Fund - Tanzania
Consortium Member: Trickle Up Program
Status: Needs Funding
Budget: $1625
Collected: $0
Needs: $1625
Goal: Many foster-families in Tanzania which take in orphans cannot provide for their basic needs. A dairy cow self-help project will provide nutrition and a source of additional income to such families.
Comment: The goal of Ukimwi Orphans Assistance is to alleviate the social, economic and psychological problems of orphans whose parents have died of AIDS.
About the Kagera Region of Tanzania
The Kagera region is located in the northwestern corner of the United Republic of Tanzania, sharing boundaries with Burundi and Rwanda to the west, and Uganda to the north. Lake Victoria is on its east.
The region has a population of 2.5 million people. It is divided into six Districts: Bukoba Urban, Bukoba Rural, Muleba, Biharamulo, Ngara and Karagwe. The districts are sub-divided into 25 Divisions, which again are sub-divided into 154 Wards and 540 registered villages for political administration purposes. The region has a total area of 28,517 square kilometers (11,010 square miles).
The people in Kagera are mostly small holder peasants, each household having about a hectare or two of land on which coffee, primarily robusta, is grown for cash earning, whereas bananas, maize (corn), sweet potatoes, cassava, beans and other legumes are grown for subsistence. On a small scale, tea is grown in Muleba and Bukoba rural districts, and cotton in Biharamulo district. There are sugar estates in Missenye, Bukoba rural district, where the Kagera Sugar Factory is operating. Other small industries include the Pepsi Cola Bottling Plant, Bukoba Coffee Curing Factory, Tanzania Instant Coffee Factory, and Maruku tea factor located in Bukoba township. The Chato ginnery is in Biharamulo district.
Kagera region is a severely disadvantaged part of the country. The per capita GDP in Kagera region is about 125 US Dollars, 50% lower than the national average of 250 US Dollars. Kagera is currently the poorest of all 20 Tanzanian mainland regions. Kagera has an unemployment rate of over 30%. The evidence of widespread poverty is everywhere in Kagera region, particularly now that the coffee prices have slumped. The HIV/AIDS pandemic is increasingly taking a heavy toll in the region, where there are also over 450,000 orphans, largely as a result of the disease.
Women represent over 50% of the total population, and are a large socially and economically underprivileged group within the society. Although women tend to work harder and longer than men, yet they remain inferior to men in education, literacy, access to essential services and participation in politics and decision making.
In Kagera region, youth represent another underprivileged group with the society, although there are large numbers of them (50% of the total population is below 18 years of age). Unemployment, boredom and abject poverty push many young men and women to leave their village and migrate towards urban centers in the hope of ridding themselves of their economic and social distress. Some of them get jobs in the informal sector as unskilled laborers, and the rest often turn to crime in the attempt to survive.
The informal sector in Kagera provides employment and sources of income to growing numbers of people. As a result, this sector makes significant but unrecognized contributions to the overall regional economy, although it is still weak and rather fragile. The many artisans, craftsmen, self-made business men and women small entrepreneurs and occasional contractors who make up this sector are in desperate need of guidance, skills and capital. With the appropriate kind of support, this sector's possibilities in a large diversity of fields (handicrafts, cottage industries, horticulture, bee-keeping, tailoring, small scale product assembly, etc.) are almost endless. Development of the informal sector in the rural areas of the region is essential for curbing the migration of youth to towns in search of labor opportunities.
Situation of Orphans in Kagera Region
The first three cases of AIDS were reported in Bukoba district in 1983. Since then, the pandemic has spread throughout the region, claiming the lives of hundreds of thousands of youthful men and women who have left behind lots of distressed children.
Traditionally, when children lose their parents, they usually are cared for by the patrilineal group to which they belong. However, even if the patrilineal group should function as a care taking system, orphaned children are still faced with many disadvantages which force many of them to seek wage employment in their childhood.
Fostered orphans do not always get the same treatment as the biological children of their guardians, especially when it comes to schooling. If the guardian is unable to meet educational expenses for all the children in the family, he usually opts to give priority to the education of his own offspring. As a result, the disciminated orphans get disgruntled and very often run away to look for petty jobs.
Sometimes, the patrilineal group members dishonestly and by force acquire the ownership of the orphans' inherited property, especially land. The loss of their inheritance puts the orphans in an awkward situation socially and economically. The aggrieved children often drift to town in search of employment for survival.
At the household level, the impact of HIV/AIDS manifests itself in the shortage of farm labor, that leads to a decline in production of food and cash crops; a decline in household income and loss of assets and savings; an increase in the dependency ratio due to the increase in the number of dependants relying on a smaller number of productive family members; disorganization and weakening of social, commuity and extended family coping mechanisms due to increased numbers of orphans, widows and widowers, and declining health and nutrition of households. It is in such households, which have been terribly enfeebled and incapacitated by AIDS through elimination of their youthful and strong economic and social supporters, that most of the orphans are found. These are the households headed by elderly grandparents, widow-headed households, and orphans-alone households.
Because of abject poverty, households which have been devastated by AIDS are unable to provide their dependants with their basic needs, such as food, bedding, clothing, medical care, decent shelter, etc. Orphaned children are, therefore, forced to work to earn some income to pay for their personal needs and for domestic requirements. In most cases orphans also have to earn money to pay for their education and even for the medical treatment of a sick family member.
Moreover, household food security is undermined as income and productive capacity fall. Rural households often shift from producing and consuming more nutritious types of food to less nutritious but more easily grown food crops. As a result, malnutrition in vulnerable children and adults increases, leading to early deaths from diseases like pneumonia, diarrhea and tuberculosis. This accounts for the high mortality rate of children in Kagera region.
Project Goal and Objectives
The principal goal of this project is to improve the nutrition in both children and adults in households affected by HIV/AIDS in Kagera region, through the introduction of dairy cattle keeping, under the "Take A Cow, Give A Cow" scheme.
Specific Objectives
Project Implementation
The "Take A Cow, Give A Cow" scheme has been proposed by the members of UOA-T (Ukimwi Orphans Assistance Trust Fund) as a viable and effective means of steadily improving the economy of foster-families of AIDS orphans, and to enable them to provide adequately for their dependants.
Under this program, three foster-families selected by the UOA-T members in Izigo Ward will be given one Frisian hybrid heifer each, bought from Kikurura National Ranch. The basic condition will be that the recipient of the heifer will hand on the first calf produced by that heifer to another selected foster-family. In this way, there will be a multiplication of foster-families dairy farming.
Project Activities
a) Training in Cattle Husbandry
It wil be a necessary condition that one adult member from each foster-family to be given a heifer goes to Kikurura Ranch for a two-week training seminar in basic techniques of cattle husbandry.
On completion of his or her training at Kikurura, the beneficiary will be attached to a Livestock Extension Officer, stationed at Izigo Farmers Education Centre, for continued on-the-job training and monitoring.
b) Cultivation of Fodder-Grass
The potential recipient foster-family will have to cultivate and maintain at least an acre of fodder grass, particularly of the Guatemara specie. They will also be taught how to make "hay" and other types of cattle feeds from locally available materials. The nutritive values of each type of feed will be explained.
c) Construction of Cow-shed
Before the foster-family is given a heifer, it wil be made certain that there exists a propoerly constructed cow-shed, that meets the standard specification s made by the Livestock District Office.
The cost of constructing a proper cow-shed is rather high for an ordinary farmer. Beneficiaries will be given some financial assistance for the purchase of more expensive items, like cement and cast iron sheets.
d) Procurement of Supplementary Feeds
The Farmers Education Centre at Izigo Ward is the place where farmers get the essential agricultural and livestock inputs and animal feeds. There are demonstration farm plots and cattle-sheds for the purpose of eduation farmers on improved agricultural and livestock keeping methods. The beneficiaries will buy their needs from this center.
Projected Future Developments
a) Dairy Farmers Association
When the number of foster-families keeping milk-cows has reached twelve, they will be assisted to form a Dairy Farmers Association. THe main function of the association will be to monitor, coordinate and improve the faming activities of the members in collaboration with the technical staff at the Farmers Education Centre.
b) Marketing of Dairy Products
As the number of dairy farmers will increase, it will be necessary to promote the consumption of milk through community nutritive education, to be given through existing social structures, namely the mutual-aid groups, youth clubs, religious groups, income generating groups, etc. Milk-kiosks will also be established at different strategic places in the Ward.
c) Improvement of Food Production
The zero-grazing system is known to be effective for the production of large amounts of cow dung, which is used as potent organic manure in banana plantations. The application of cow manure in banana farms improves soil fertility, helps to boost the health of plans, and consequently increases the banana crop. As a result, foster-families engaged in dairy farming will be much better fed.
Anticipated Results
a) The health of foster-families will improve.
b) Food production by foster-families will increase.
c) The economic standard of foster-families will rise.
d) Foster-families will be able to provide adquately for the AIDS orphans in their care.
e) The population of Izigo Ward will enjoy the spill-over of the benefits of this project.
Monitoring and Evaluation
Apart from the project monitoring by the Livestock Extension Officers, UOA-T executive staff will visit the beneficiaries regularly in order to monitor their activities and to provide them with more assistance where necessary. Evaluation will be done through a questionnaire in order to establish the state of the social and economic life of foster-families before the introduction of the project, and to compare with their state of life after the project is in full swing.
Project Budget
| Purchase of 3 heifers, each 300,000/= | 900,000 Tshs. |
| Transport of 3 heifers to Izigo, each 50,000/= | 150,000 Tshs. |
| Support to farmers for building cow-sheds | |
| 3 sheds x 5 bags of cement x Tshs 10,000/= | 150,000 |
| 3 sheds x 12 c.i. sheets x Tshs. 7,000/= | 252,000 |
| Subtotal | 1,452,000 |
| VF Administrative Fee | 145,200 |
| Total Requested from Virtual Foundation | 1,597,200 Tshs. or $1625 USD |
Contribution by the Beneficiaries
The major contribution by the beneficiary families will be in terms of labor. The recipient foster-family will have to cultivate at least an acre of fodder grass and also build a cow-shed using lcoally available materials like poles, timber and log off-casts. The training fees and transport cost to and from Kikurura ranch will be paid by the families.
Moreover, the system of zero-grazing for milk-cows will demand a great deal of labor input. Beneficiaries will have to collect grass and draw water to feed the cow, and also keep the shed tidy every day. They will also have to buy supplementary feeds like mineral salts, molasses, grain bran and cotton seed-cakes.