Field Reports
NORTH WEST PIG FARMERS COOPERATIVE SOCIETY
(NOWEPIFAC)
REPORT: BHIP To Graduate Outreach ASIAN RURAL INSTITUTE
STORIES FROM Asian Rural Institute Graduate 2014, Cameroon
(July, 2018)
Introduction:
It is not all the things learned from ARI that is applicable in the different communities of participants irrespective of the effort made by the participant to apply the ARI knowledge.
One thing is very clear about knowledge application.
The participant in question must have or develop interest in the topic and see reason to have the lesson learned applied in his/her context.
Yes, it could be argued that efforts have failed but the question is, how consistent and efficient have we tried? This time my stories will focus more on our door ARI learning and not class learning.
I have a few things I would like to share with all ARI friends the world over that have been my personal and profitable experience since 2014 when I left ARI after staying for 9 months.
I will be very brief but you are allowed to expatiate from your reasoning if you can.
Dish washing and Kitchen choirs
Manure Collection
Waste sorting
Morning Exercise / Devotion
Home Stay
Reflection/Coordination meetings with Group Leaders
Dish washing:
I am very proud to say that my home is standing firm, my children well molded, my wife now loves me more than ever before just as they all see me with unbelievable sense that a father can wash dishes while the children stand and watch.
It was already a tradition which the contrary was considered a taboo in our communities that an adult can wash plate or cook food in the kitchen while the wife or children get busy with other house assignments.
MANURE COLLECTION:
A portion/room of my piggery is set aside for the collection of manure.
It is roofed and pig feces kept on cemented floor to avoid leaching of nutrients as I saw in ARI and fermentation last throughout the rainy season, then in the dry season I can then remove and spread it out, dry and bag it for sale or use some directly on the farm while part of them is used to increase the manure by making bokashi.
Each year I can make some 50,000 FRS for my farm from the sales of pig manure.
WASTE SORTING:
We have no facility for the recycling of waste so for now what we do is just separating the burnable from the decomposable waste materials.
We burn the burnable and dump the decomposable in the campus area.
Also pieces or iron are separated from aluminum as well as plastics from bottles etc before discarding in the appropriate manner.
Some neighbors have learned to share this experience and are now doing the same thing in their homes.
As a management chairperson of a government health facility, I have introduced the idea of waste sorting in our health facility and this idea has been bought as a way of encouraging healthy hygiene practice.
MORNING EXERCISE / DEVOTION:
This healthy practice of waking up from bed in the morning and doing some exercise prior to beginning of the day activity
was something commonly neglected, but after visiting Japan 2014 it became a routine practice in my home, done some times alone but more often collectively with my wife and kids.
This has kept my family healthy enough. My wife and children take turns in leading morning prayers (devotion) even though as in Japan without singing any readymade song.
Christian values as a family are uplifted with this practice.
HOME STAY ADVANTAGE:
Through my stories I will like to advice my fellow ARI participants that it is very necessary to maintain a healthy and cordial relationship with their home stays.
While in Japan 2014, I shared the same opinion with my other fellow participants that the biggest challenge we will face back home will be the lack of finance to implement the lessons learned from ARI.
We wondered aloud and wished we could have supporters like ARI has to help us achieve our dream projects.
My community have benefited a lot from some Japanese families I will like to quote here. Encouraged by senior pastor Johann of Tokyo Union Church (TUC), Go Komatsu, trusting God, his hand and not trying things by himself stood between me and other Japanese supportersin a project captioned “SOS Japan Initiative” to make farmers of the North West pig Farmers cooperative in Cameroon benefit from infrastructure improvement and also their general welfare.
Go Komatsu (My Tokyo home stay friend)
Yukari Sato (TUC friend of Go Komatsu)
Tazuko Arai (TUC friend of Go Komatsu)
Megumi Izumoji (My homestay friend )
Shiho Matsukura (A friend of Go Komatsu)
Saori Nagasawa (TUC friend of Go Komatsu)
Shu Sato
Toru kumaki(A friend of Go Komatsu)
Five others actually (friends to Go Komatsu's SOS Japan vision in Cameroon)
It should be noted that money is not how much you earn that matters but how efficient you put it into use and more over we must not forget that little drops of water make a mighty ocean.
Small amount of JPY in Japan become great sums of CFA in Cameroon, so supporter should never think that what they have is too small to start up a dream project except their efforts fall in the wrong hands.
To know more about the works of our supporters, visit our web site on http//nowepifac.com. On behalf of the pig farmers cooperative, I wish to express our sincere gratitude to these Japanese families for the wonderful achievements we have recorded over these past years since 2015.
Special thanks to Go komatsu and mother Yoko, Also thanks to Megumi Izumoji for their sustainable support. The watchwords are honesty, trusting God and keeping in touch with sincere reports. In good faith distance cannot be a barrier.
REFLECTION/COORDINATION MEETINGS WITH GROUP LEADERS:
This was a common practice in ARI and during these kind of meetings, past projects are evaluated and corrections are made in order to improve on subsequent projects.
During meetings, work is planned, responsibilities are shared, mails from partners are reviewed and issues raised are deliberated upon.
New projects are conceived and potential beneficiaries identified for funding.
Group leadership conflicts are also resolved during some special meetings.
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