The power of community empowerment

Therefore, Mutomo Maarifa Centre in collaboration with the Mutomo District Ministry of Livestock Production and Development organized for a technical training on these key areas on April this year. The training which was held in Malili village, Kyatune Location of Mutomo District was attended by 40 community members.

The training outcome

Two months down the lane, the group members are enjoying improved goat health and low goat mortality.

Mrs. Musembi says’ “although I could not write down notes during the training, I memorized the clinical signs of different goat diseases and the recommended treatment which I narrated to my son who is a primary school teacher. Since we treated the goats, no more have died and my goats are healthier”

 

The group’s Chairlady Mrs.Domitila Muimi who had also attended the training is of the same sentiments. She says that although she had attended a previous training, she had very limited knowledge on goat health.

“My goats had very poor health and most of them had diseases like diarrhea and coughing. Some of the kids had also died. But after the training I realized what they were ailing from since all the clinical signs had been listed down. For instance, I only knew of one drug for worm infestation ( helminthesis ), but know I know of different varieties.” says Mrs.Muimi

She adds that as the group’s Chairlady she is grateful for the knowledge to her group members since it has equipped them with knowledge to overcome their challenges as small scale farmers.

“Whenever we meet as a group and I ask them a general question they always understand what is necessary to ensure they have healthier goats,” she concludes.

The group’s secretary Mr Kioko Kisuni says that the he now uses the knowledge to train other group members who did not attend the training

Drip irrigation Extension manual resolves technical hitch for group

“This forced us to bring water twice a week so that we could meet this demand,” says Mr.Kioko Kisuni, the group’s secretary

Mr.Kioko decided to visit Mutomo Maarifa Centre to look for a solution to his group members’ dilemma. An advisory committee member, he knew the Maarifa Centre has information resources that could help them. At the Maarifa Centre, he borrowed the Drip irrigation Extension Manual by ALIN.

Found a solution

 “The book has topics on system maintenance which gave us information on cleaning filters, flushing clogged drip lines, replacing and repairing damaged and broken parts,” says Mr.Kisuni.

Mr.Kisuni passed on this information to the group and they were able to solve the problem. “Now, we are once again enjoying the drip irrigation system and saving more time’” he says happily adding that as the secretary of group the manual has given him farm products recording skills. He also learnt better crop management skills and started his own vegetable growing venture. He thanks ALIN for the library resource saying that getting information from other arid and semi-arid areas has enriched his knowledge.

 “Learning from farmers in different regions has enriched our knowledge and given us encouragement that we too can do better under these harsh climatic conditions,” he says.

Mola Mathina Self-help group benefit from orphan crops

Now, the members have resorted to growing orphaned crops like sorghum, green grams and cow peas. Their efforts have been largely boosted by extension services from the District Agricultural Office.

Benedict Mathitu is an extension Officer with Mutomo District Agricultural Office. Part of his duties includes offering extension services to farmers in the district. But for him to play this role, relevant information is needed.

Mathitu  is a beneficiary of Mutomo Maarifa Centre where he borrows books touching on Agriculture and climate change. This is how he came upon Farmers’ Seed Production (New approaches and practices), a book that has information on seed production and retrieval. One of the chapters was on Principles of Food Production. With this knowledge, Mr Mathitu was able to train the group on adopting orphaned crops (traditional high value crops (THVCS), a technology the group embraced.


The Ministry of Agriculture also supplied the group with gardam sorghum seed during last year’s short rains.Due to the poor rains the group members realized a small harvest and each member harvested at least a bag. This is a big boost to the members since fellow farmers who had cultivated maize realized no harvest at all. “Before, we used to plant maize a lot. Most of the times, we realized no harvest. But ever since we received training on embracing orphaned crops from the Ministry of Agriculture staff, we have seen change,” says Angeline Kalungu, the group’s secretary.

Future plans

Mrs. Kalungu says that the group now plans to embrace more orphaned crops seed variety like green grams, millet and cow peas in the future. “We see this as the first step towards achieving food security for our families and generally improve our livelihood,” she adds.

Message to ALIN

Mr. Mathitu praises ALIN for their library services citing that the Maarifa Centre has a lot of untapped wealth in terms of information. “I encourage fellow extension officers to exploit the information in the library as it is simple, easily understandable and applicable. There are many books on all subjects and farmers, teachers, business community and anybody interested in farming can also borrow simple ones that are well illustrated!” concludes Mathitu.

Nurturing Mutomo ICT Gurus

...Employment status analysis showed that the non-working group was the majority with 50 % followed by farmers with 20%.Working/self-employed registered 16% while civil servants had 14%.

Additionally, analyzed level of education showed that 79% of the trainees had reached O-Level education while 14 % had college education and 3% had gone up Primary School.

The selection criteria

To get started with the training, interested community members were grouped into two for effective training given available computers. All the trainees were called for a brief meeting where the training objectives were explained and the trainer Mr. Phillip Kyule introduced to the trainees.  The Advisory Committee Chairman, Mr.Benson Nyamai also addressed the participants and emphasized to them how this was a rare opportunity which had to be exploited for the benefit of the community. Trainees were also informed about the role of Maarifa centre, the need for punctuality, and some basic norms and rules to be maintained during the training sessions.

 

The trainees were segregated into four training sessions which was:

• 8.00 a.m-10.00 a.m-trainees who live near Mutomo town and immediate surrounding (mostly youth)
• 11.00 a.m-1.00p.m- Trainees who live a distance from Mutomo (mostly youth)
• 2.00p.m- 4.00p.m-Farmers and adults who were 36 years and above
• 5.00 p.m -7.00p.m-The working class

The first group consisting of 58 trainees (31F, 27M) commenced training on 17^th January 2012. The trainees were of diverse ages. The youngest trainee was 17 years old while the oldest was 63 years old. This first class successfully completed the training session on 28^th February 2012 while the other group of 56 trainees (M -18, F- 38) is currently being trained.

What trainees want to do!

The trainees’ ideas in utilizing the skills are as diverse as their ages and professions. While youth hope to secure employment with the skills gained, business people want to gain record keeping skills while farmers hope to be self-reliant in ICT.

The trainer’s Experience

According to the trainer, Mr. Philip Kyule, training the diverse community members has been an eye opener for him. He says the trainees’ capacity to grasp the content lied largely on their ages and educational back ground adding that the adults tended more reserved around the machines as compared to youth.

Mr. Kyule adds that the training made him learn how to interact with people of different age groups, how to handle their different needs and how to train them despite the different rates of grasping content.

“ While the youth were enthusiastic and wanted to practically learn everything, the adults  wanted to learn record keeping skills and business applications like MS Excel’’ he says.

Lessons learnt

“I would highly recommend grouping the trainees according to ages and education as this enables the trainer to tailor the training according to the pace and understanding of the trainees” adds Philip.

Since all the students did not have the same learning capacity, Mr.Kyule says that he had to cope with students who were slow in grasping the content.

 He concludes that from the first experience he found out that for effective training, one has to always put emphasis in learning  his/her trainees’ areas of interest so as to ensure they get a high quality training and enjoy the exercise at the same time.

The most popular package!

Mr, Kyule says that Ms PowerPoint was most liked by the students because of its graphic features.

“Trainees loved to put animations in their presentations and watch the slideshows,” he says.

Listen to the trainees voices…

Anastasia Mueni Peter is a casual employee at Mutomo Mission Hospital.

“Part of my job requires me to order for supplies through a computer, but ever since I was employed, I used to stare at the computer because I had no idea how to use it” she says.                      

She adds that now that she has gained computer skills she can order supplies comfortably therefore saving a lot of time.

For more captivating testimonies, please follow these links:

http://mutomomaarifa.blogspot.com/2012/03/utilizing-ict-skills-beneficiaries.html

http://mutomomaarifa.blogspot.com/2012/03/this-is-my-planan-ict-training.html

http://mutomomaarifa.blogspot.com/2012/02/father-and-daughter-in-class.html

http://mutomomaarifa.blogspot.com/2012/01/mutomo-maarifa-centre-free-ict-training.html