THURLITH PRIMARY AND SECONDARY SCHOOL GARDEN PROJECT PROPOSAL
A Basic Summary of the Project Project Title:
Thurlith Primary and Secondary School Agriculture Project
Project Name:
School Garden for Orphans and Street Children
Target Beneficiaries:
450 Orphans and Street Children
Project Location:
ECSS Northern Bahr el Ghazal Internal Province
Project Contacts Contact Person: Email: Tel:
Rev. John Bol Angui revjohnbol@wau.anglican.org or johnbolangui@gmail.com +211912732235, +211956934480 or +256704611616
Contact Person: Email: Tel:
The Most Rev. Moses Deng Bol bishop@wau.anglican.org or mosesdengbol@gmail.com +254716156205, +211915485817 or +211955602769
Project Period:
12 Months
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A Map Showing the Location of Thurlith in South Sudan
TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11.
Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………03 Project summary…………………………………………………………………………………………………….…………………03 Problem Statement…………………….………………………………………………………………………………………….…04 Project Justification……………………………………………………………………………………………………………….….04 Overall goal.……………………………………………………………………..……………………………………………………….05 Project objective……………………………………………………………………………………………………..………………..05 Project activities………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..05 Expected Results……………....……..………………………………………………………………………………………………06 Project Sustainability.……………………..…………………………………………………………………….………………….06 Monitoring and Evaluation……………………………………..…………………………………………………………………06 Project Budget……………………………………………………………………………………………………………….………….07 2
12. Certificates ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….08 13. Photos …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………09-11
Introduction The Episcopal Church of South Sudan, Northern Bahr el Ghazal Internal Province (ECSS-NBIP) has realized that a school is the most successful and practical way of reducing the rapidly spreading movement of the massive number of vulnerable orphans and street children everywhere in the towns of South Sudan. We have already started a new free school centre called Thurlith Primary School for Orphans and Street Children early in 2017 on Feb 23rd. We thank God for maintaining the schools successful function for the whole academic year 2017. We have added secondary classes this year 2018. These schools will serve all vulnerable children from all areas of the ECSS Northern Bahr el Gahazal Internal Province such as Wau, Gogrial, Tonj, Aweil, Abyei Dioceses and beyond. Thurlith Primary and Secondary School for Orphans and Street Children is a free school for every child from all these areas and was allocated in Gogrial State at Awan Chan County in Akon town about 5 kilometers away from Akon bridge to the West. It was opened as the Christians’ response to the sadness of the children who lack a certain happiness due to their early separation from the parents by either death or lack of proper care in poor families. The purpose of initiating this school is to collect vulnerable children from every town of Northern Bahr el Ghazal Internal Province or states for proper care and education rather than them being taking from the streets back home to their parents or relatives only later to return to the street again. There is often no proper care and most of the children on streets are orphans who don’t actually know where their relatives are. We have seen and realized that it is our task as the Church to take care of such issues in the community and society. However, we were facing a lot of financial challenges in the school, the Most Rev. Moses Deng Bol, Archbishop of Northern Bahr el Ghazal Internal Province and Bishop of Wau Diocese encouraged local contributions in order to prepare the large piece of Agriculture farm for the school garden which will produce the food for feeding the school. The land has been successfully prepared and the biggest problem of the project is lack of financial support and cultivation tools such as ox-plough and other main tools for easy cultivation.
Project summary ECSS – Northern Bahr el Ghazal Internal Province is now appealing for financial support to open up more acres of land for farming. It is an effective alternative to use an ox plough or traction for easy cultivation. The ox ploughs and the tractors are the best and the modern methods of cultivation which increase production and improve the lives of farmer’s households through increasing food production, giving more income from the sale of food surplus.
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The animal traction mode of ploughing will be based on the concept of teambuilding, 100 farmers of this school garden project will be formed into 5 group of 20 people for the farming team. Each of these farmer teams will be given 10 ox ploughs and 20 bulls. In this proposal we are going to train them in practices that will enable them to get the best use of the land, tools and bulls, and so rebuild their lives. This idea is unique because it is targeting poor children who live on less than one dollar a day. The poor rural farmers do have land and it is only the rudimentary methods of farming which is still being used. This project aims at increasing food production to the school children and poor farmers. The project is demand driving and self-sustaining because each season farmers have to produce enough food when oxplough service is provided.
Problem Statement The economic activity of the people in Northern Bahr el Ghazal Internal Province is livestock and subsistence farming. People are still using a hand hoe to open up gardens to plant crops. The use of a hand hoe forces people to have small gardens which in turn make them to produce very little food. The little food that is produced, people are forced to sell part of it to meet their basic needs. Since very small amounts of food is produced by the farmers, and of the very small amount produced part of it is sold to raise income to meet basic needs of the community, the farmers have to face the problem of food insecurity and poverty. The ox-plough project will provide fifty (50) ox-ploughs and 100 bulls to the farmers so that they are able to produce enough food for consumption and surplus for sale.
Project Justification The most limiting factor for most farmers in Northern Bahr el Ghazal Internal Province is due to the type of tools available. The most common tool used in the area is called a maloda, which requires a farmer to kneel on the ground, and takes approximately five hours to work between 20m² - 50m² while using a welltrained pair of oxen and a mould board plough however, three farmers can cultivate half an acre of land (2,023 m²) in just two hours. A previous attempt to introduced ox plough techniques into this region was initially resisted by local farmers. Oxen are so prized, that people were unwilling to harness them for agricultural purposes. However, the benefits have been demonstrated and farmers are growing much more enthusiastic. This trend (food insecurity) is progressively on the increase, calling for urgent intervention. The interventions described in this proposal aim at: - enhancing the level of production, increasing productivity. The overall result will be guaranteed food security and an increase of school incomes. Also of equal significance is the fact that farming practices that conserve the environment will be promoted. 4
Due to these limitations mentioned above, there is a real need for an urgent and strategic intervention to help this school garden project. The subsistence farmer’s food security is precarious because of the low acreage and low productivity. Farmers are also dependent on rainfall only. When drought strikes the farmers experience failure of crops and hence certain famine. A farmer using an ox- plough can increase his/her acreage to 10-15 acres in one-months cultivation. This increases the household land area of crops three times in a year. Other benefits of this method of cultivation are that the farmer (household) has time to weed his/her crops early thus improving the productivity of his/her farm. During training of the farmer, he/she also gets the knowledge of improved agricultural techniques that can increase the yield of his/her crops.
Overall goal: 1. The overall goal of the project is to produce enough food for feeding the school. 2. To strengthen food security in the project area by establishing good farming techniques which can be up scaled to other areas. 3. It is expected that, this will lead to programmatic and structural change of the farming system in those areas that have potential for increased food crop production.
Project objective 1. To enable the school to produce enough food for itself and stop relief food operations. 2. To improve farmers agricultural knowledge and techniques through extension programs. 3. To train 5 extension workers to disseminate modern agricultural techniques.
Project activities The training of farmers will take 2 weeks and each group of 20 farmers in a farming group will be given 10 ox-ploughs and 20 bulls. The school administration will be in charge of the garden under the supervision of Northern Bahr el Ghazal Internal Province. The farmers will be trained in groups on how to use the ox ploughs. During the training period the farmers will also be introduced to improved agricultural techniques to increase crop production. Animal health principles will also be taught to the farmers to take good care of the bulls and make good use of the tools. Northern Bahr el Ghazal Internal Province will employ two training facilitators to train the farmers and 5 extension officers. The extension officers will be in charge of supervising the activities of the 20 farmers in a farming group. The duties of an extensions officer shall include keeping record of farmers’ acres, crop yields, annual rainfall, pest infestations and animal health problems. 5
Each extension officer would be required to establish a demonstration farm in his/her area. Establish systematic feedback on farmer’s perceptions and acceptability of the project to evaluate their implications for scaling up and to ensure that the technologies remain relevant and appropriate to the farmer’s situations while developing appropriate knowledge and Information sharing products for different stakeholder groups.
Expected Results/Outcomes 1. Thurlith Primary and secondary school will benefit from the project and will get a dramatic food increase which will enable them to have enough school food throughout the year and surplus to sell, which will in return enable them to get some financial support from it. 2. It will help the school with agriculture produce which will increase and promote food security especially in the school, toward the vulnerable orphans and street children in the school. 3. Improved technologies for addressing structural food security challenges will be adopted.
Project Sustainability Northern Bahr el Ghazal Internal Province is applying for the funds adequate in order to ensure its sustainability for one year and local fund raising will be continued to find some funds for project maintenance so as to support the proposed project and also mainstream the outcomes of this initiative into ongoing programmes for food security which are being implemented by Northern Bahr el Ghazal Internal Province and key developmental partners. In addition to this, efforts will be made to strengthen the emphasis on an approach to community-driven participatory development that takes advantage of the strengthening identified with regard to local social capital to empower local farmers.
Monitoring and Evaluation ECSS Northern Bahr el Ghazal Internal Province will be responsible for monitoring and evaluation of the project activities, provide strategic policy guidance for project implementation such as financial systems and some approaches which embraces participatory principles involving the local and other development partners. ECSS Northern Bahr el Ghazal Internal Province will be responsible for regular reviews to assess achievement of the agreed goals and objectives of the programme through a Steering Committee, organizing periodic review planning, joint strategy meetings with all partners and a final report by the end of the financial year of the project which will show all financial expenses by both internal and external auditors. 6
Northern Bahr el Ghazal Internal Province will encourage the stakeholders to participate in the process of upgrading the project and include representatives of farmers from civil society, to develop their capacity building on agricultural systems of modern farming/cultivation of farming.
Project Budget S/No 1 2 3 4 5
Item Ox plough and its chain Motor Bike Bicycle Transport Bull
Quantity 50 1 5 1 100
Unit Prize $ 200 $ 2500 $ 200 $ 5000 $ 200
Sub-Total S/No Training 1 Trainee 2 Trainer/facilitator
$ 38500
100 2
$ 800 $ 200
Sub-Total S/No Incentive 1 Project Coordinator 2 Extension Agents
Total in USD $ 10000 $ 2500 $ 1000 $ 5000 $ 20000
$ 5600 $ 1400
$ 7000
1 5
$ 250 $ 150
$ 3000 $ 9000
Sub-Total
$ 12000
Admin cost 5%
$ 2875
Grant Total
$ 60,375
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Figure 1 A photo of the first harvest of grain from the garden of Thurlith Primary and secondary school.
Figure 2 Rev. John Bol Angui at Thurlith Primary and Secondary School’s Garden. We have two harvest times in the same garden by removing the canes of the first harvest to allow another germination from the roots which will later produce yielding again for another harvest. It is now almost time for another harvest.
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Figure 3 The second harvests is almost ready
Figure 4 Rev John Bol Angui records the farmers’ requests of modern Agricultural tools and the number of the new acres prepared for the next cultivation.
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Figure 5 The farmers’ team leader pointed at the area they have covered in a preparation of a new garden for next cultivation.
Figure 6 Rev John Bol Angui appreciated a young man responsible for the famers’ feeding in the garden.
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