Harmony women's club

WorldAIDSDay 1December2013

Women living with HIV

Empowerment

through Better Rearing of Goats

ZAMBIA

Case of Harmony Women’s Club in Batoka area of Southern Province

©IFAD/Karima Cherif

Small-holder Agribusiness Promotion Programme (SAPP) is a program under the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock funded by the International Fund for Agriculture Development (IFAD). SAPP is a public-private endeavor to reduce rural poverty by stimulating rural economic development driven by transformation of small-scale producers into profitable farmers.

SAPP targets small-scale farming households who are organized in enterprise groups or who have the potential to join groups that can be better linked to markets. The target group includes households who already devote part of their efforts to market-oriented production and need to be assisted by improving their marketing operations, and diversification of production, processing and value adding.

SAPP has made attempts to streamline cross-cutting issues such as HIV and AIDs into its programming and interventions. Beyond creating awareness and sharing of messages on HIV and AIDS among the Programme’s target groups, SAPP has in some instances specifically targeted groups that are directly affected by HIV and AIDS, as part of the wider efforts by government and other partners to respond to and mitigate the effects of HIV and AIDs. One such group is the Harmony women’s club in Batoka area of Southern province.

Who are Harmony Women’s Club?

Name: Founded in: Membership:

Harmony Women ‘club, affiliated to the Batoka Area Women Association.

2004 This group is mostly made up of People Living With HIV and AIDS (PLWHA). Initial membership of 10.

Membership now stands at 23. to improve the nutrition of their members.

GOAL: Group Activities: The group grows crops, particularly maize and vegetables and is involved in rearing goats.

Selection of the Group As part of the process to implement the Small-livestock Intervention Plan (IP) the Programme, through the District Agricultural office, and specifically through the District Marketing and Development Officer, SAPP undertook a group identification exercise in selected districts in Southern province, including Choma. The focus was on groups that were already involved in one way or another in small-livestock. This was partly, because, the programme works with already existing groups - except in very exceptional circumstance - and build on past achievements.

Harmony Women’s club was identified as such, but also as a group that had among its membership, individuals who were openly known as living with HIV and AIDS -PLWHA. Small-livestock offers an opportunity to reduce rural poverty levels especially among women as it is not as demanding and markets are generally available contributing greatly to rural household incomes, and presents an opportunity even for PLWHA as a potential income generating venture in rural areas.

Awareness Creation Activities As part of the groups in Batoka area, the Harmony group was among those who undertook awareness creation activities.

During the sensitization and awareness creation sessions, the group informed the facilitators - SAPP field facilitator, the DMDO, and the District Cooperative Officer, (DCO) that while they were a functional group, with 10 goat, at the time, they were not benefitting much considering the welfare of the group.

They group was focussing on improving the welfare of its members through increased incomes and improved food security and nutrition. The group had indicated that nutrition on their part was important considering the medication (anti-retroviral therapy-ART) a number of their members were taking. The group indicated that they benefits had not yet accrued to individual members, as they only had 10 goats. The group was also involved in knitting and sold their products as part of income generation, above individual membership contributions.

The group generally felt that they needed to do better for it to attain its goal and that the group also needed to be well orgainized. It was then that the group also requested to be trained in some elementary business skills and on how well to organise themselves.

©IFAD/Karima Cherif

SAPP started interacting with the group in 2012. So far the group has received trainings in: 1) Governance and entrepreneurship 2) Production of goats according to market specifications to meet standards required by the big markets in the sub-sector.

In addition, the programme facilitated the group to visit a the Livestock market centre and More Beef Ltd,. a process/buyer in Choma town as part of the process to be sensitized and mentored on production of quality goats. The group has since applied for support from SAPP under the Programme’s Matching Grant Facility to source improved breed of goats that would fetch better prices in the market. The programme is currently at the stage of reviewing the business proposal.

Capacity Building & Training

Steps Toward Empowerment

The group subsequently received training in entrepreneurship and Governance. The training covered topics on types and characteristics of entrepreneurs, vision setting, business planning, and management of cooperatives and other related issues on governance. The different topics in the training were delivered by the DMDO, the Camp Officer and the cooperative inspector, depending on the topic.

It was in the trainings on entrepreneurship and governance that the point of management/poor husbandry practices was brought out strongly. The other problem highlighted was lack of access to better/improved breeds, and made reference to boar goats that were from time-to-time available for sale at the nearby Golden Valley Research Trust.

The group facilitated some basic training in “best-practices’’ in goat farming or producing according to market specifications, focusing on: common breeds of goats and goat breeding; feeding; goat housing and handling structures and routine goat management practices, including disease control.

The group made a resolve that it needed better breeds of goats for it to be getting better prices for their goats. They reported that often the buyers, who are mainly ‘’brief-case’’ traders took advantage of the small size of goats (local breed) are would not pay a better price. The group felt that they needed to have some of the improved crosses, which they would in turn cross with their local breeds for them to realize better income levels.

ŠIFAD/Karima Cherif

To Be Continued...

Presently, the group managed to write a business proposal to expand their business through the SAPP Matching Grant Facility.

The business proposal was one of the few that have managed all passes through all the evaluation stage and is now only waiting for approval from the Matching Grant Committee. The group wants to procure improved breeds of goats, specifically, boar goats. The group is looking at prospects of better goats that will fetch premium prices in Choma. Better prices would mean more income, which could be used to buy food and purchase fertilizers for their crops and vegetables and would be assured of food security and nutrition. The programme has also facilitated the group to visit potential buyers of the goats in Choma, as part of mentoring the group and also linking the group to better markets.

SAPP is confident that with the funds they will soon receive, with the business knowledge as well as the technical know-how on production that they have acquired Harmony Women’s Group will likely achieve its goal of improving nutrition and welfare of their members.

The photographs used in this publication are for illustrative purposes only; they do not imply any particular health status, attitudes, behaviors, or actions on the part of any person who appears in the photographs. Photographs have been compiled from stock imagery from previous supervision mission in Southern Province.