Walking around Nakuru town today, I was thinking about why a particular project was going so slowly. The project involves showing people how to make simple solar cookers. They just require cardboard or something similar, reflective paper, glue, tape and a blade. But the main problem has been getting hold of the materials in large enough quantities at as low a cost as possible. It's all very well to say 'just buy them' but I don't have a budget and if I buy them, what use will that be to the free or almost free model.
I would like to think that certain things can be constructed using free or very cheap materials. In Western countries, such as the UK, you can get all the cardboard you need by visiting a supermarket or department store. But here, you have to pay. I don't know about the lowest price yet, but I had to pay the price of half a kilo of maize for a single cardboard box. They are reused until they can no longer be called a box, and that's a very good thing. You don't see lots of cardboard box waste lying around, not until it's completely useless. Because this 'waste' is valued, it doesn't present the sort of litter problem they have here with plastic bags, say.
Similarly, I wanted to find some kind of durable reflective paper. I know that lots of sweets, biscuits, chocolate and other products are wrapped in such paper. Even better, car tyres are wrapped in a very durable reflective paper. Having identified these sources, I now need to identify places where people can get the stuff in large enough quantities. I'm still working on that. Some shops I visited were reluctant to hand over any more than a small sample, others simply said they didn't have any to spare. Perhaps this stuff is also reused for something, perhaps people are just holding out for an appropriate price. Tin foil would be Ok but it's expensive and not very durable.
Anyhow, I think people who are making these solar cookers should source the materials by themselves. They will get a much better price and will be better placed to source the materials for free. I just want to know that the materials are available so no one can tell me that I'm asking them to do something impossible. I'm getting closer, but I'm not there yet. Once I have found a good place to get adequate amounts of cardboard and reflective paper at a good price, hopefully free, then I can tell people where to go and get started making the cookers. I'll throw in a free pot of glue and anything else that is required!
I've had similar experiences with cooking baskets (also called fireless cookers). The main material for these devices, which insulate cooking pots sufficiently to allow partially cooked food to cook completely, is some kind of stuffing. An ideal kind of stuffing is a waste product from a local blanket factory. However, this waste product is also used for furniture, pillows, quilting, etc. So, again, you have to pay for it. Enough for a medium sized cooking basket costs about the price of two kilos of maize meal, enough to feed quite a number of people. I'm sure buying it in large quantities would bring the cost down but it's a challenge to the free or almost free model. Alternative, waste from local sisal factories could be used, but this too costs money as it is used to stuff furniture.
Another of our proposed projects is to construct a press that can compress briquettes made from organic waste. I spent some time looking for someone who could make such a press (it's not as easy to find someone as you might think!). When I found one, I gave him some plans I had found on the internet, a variety of wooden and metal ones. I was surprised that he recommended making the press from metal because the sort of high strength wood required would be very expensive. On the other hand, the metal could be sourced from scrap metal dealers. The labour would be cheap and I'm expecting to have a version of the press in the next week or so.
The briquettes can be made out of many things, fruit and vegetable peelings, charcoal dust, sawdust, waste from food production and other sources. Getting large amounts of waste in the right form may not be so easy. Sawdust has to be paid for, though the other materials are free (unless the word gets around that they are valuable). But they will probably need to be chopped or crushed so they can be mixed in the right proportions. And chopping or crushing machines are available, but they are very expensive. Ok, expensive means tens or hundreds of dollars. But where you only stand to make a few dollars a day profit at the most, no one is going to shell out large amounts for materials.
Economy of scale would make a huge difference, of course. But the aim of these projects is to be small and cheap. They need to be small enough and cheap enough for people who have very little money and probably very little education. If the money, training and education were readily available, there wouldn't be so much of a problem. So I'm looking for as many of these 'free or almost free' ways of either making money, saving money or a combination of the two.
Luckily, the organisation I'm working with, Ribbon of Hope, in Nakuru, has a number of other projects. We grow crops and support people to produce things that get them an income. Some of our clients keep livestock and we are investigating the possibility of breeding rabbits for food. These are all good 'bread and butter' projects because they provide people with income or food or both. But the more we can branch out and find other ways of making money, especially ways that don't require much capital, the better. Hence my aim to work on the free or almost free model to see how far it can take us.
Showing posts with label generating income. Show all posts
Showing posts with label generating income. Show all posts
Friday, February 26, 2010
Monday, February 15, 2010
Generating Self Reliance
Sometimes I get carried away when I'm blogging and I write something quite different from what I set out to write. The other day I wrote about how food insufficiency could affect people's likelihood of transmitting or becoming infected with HIV. That's fine, but my intention was also to say why I ended up working for a community based organisation that aims to help people become more self reliant, to produce food or goods that they can sell, or to identify ways of cutting their day to day costs. But now I think the answer should be clear.
Ribbon of Hope Self Help Group, Nakuru, are working on a number of projects involving both HIV positive and HIV negative people in poor communities. Those projects range from growing food crops and keeping livestock to making things for sale here and abroad, providing various services and spreading intermediate technologies, such as solar cooking. The main thing is that we find income generation activities that are easy for people to do, even if they have very little money and training. If people are able to make or save some money, they will be more self reliant and better able to cope with the many stresses of life.
Today was a great day for solar cooking. The location was ideal, about one kilometer from the Equator, and the sun was hot. We got there in time to set things up, not that that takes very long, and then started to answer the numerous questions people had. We were in a conspicuous area, so groups of people would form and disperse throughout the morning. I have no idea how many people came to see food being cooked using bits of reflective cardboard and pots that were painted black and stuck in a bag. But when the food was cooked, there were around thirty people willing to taste the rice, boiled maize meal and cabbage. If I'd known so many people were coming I would have prepared something more appetizing. But there will be plenty of opportunities to go back and demonstrate again!
Will this prevent HIV from spreading? Not on its own, no. But there are many intermediate technologies that can provide people with cheap or free energy, solar cookers are just one example. We will be demonstrating others when we have the equipment. There are also many ways people can make money. We are researching the ones which will be most suitable for this particular context, poor, rural, isolated, etc. We want each person or family to take on more than one way of making or saving money, in fact, as many as possible each. The Scottish say 'many a mickle makes a muckle', here in East Africa they say 'haba na haba hujaza kibaba' (little by little fills the pot).
Those who collect HIV data are probably not going to note a drop in HIV transmission in this area next year, or perhaps even several years from now. HIV is going to continue to spread in an area where the disease is endemic, where people are poor and lack health facilities, where a good level of education is rare, where basic things like food and water are in scarce supply, where infrastructure is falling apart and where most people don't work.
But Ribbon of Hope aims to reduce poverty to the extent that some people will be able to send their kids to school, pay for their health care and provide them with adequate nutrition and clean water. And when those children leave school, they will have a better chance of being able to find work, being better educated and healthier than the generation before them. They may even have developed some entrepreneurial skills and know good ways to make enough money to do the same for their children.
Most HIV money is spent on very expensive projects that target one disease and only one aspect of that disease, sexual behaviour. As long as the contexts in which this sexual behaviour takes place are ignored, most of the money is being wasted. Health, nutrition, food security, education, infrastructure and many other things are crying out for money but unless sexual behaviour is somehow involved, they will not be funded. This approach has not worked. HIV rates have waxed and waned in certain areas and in certain demographic groups. But rates are still high and the levels of sexual practices said to spread HIV have remained relatively unaffected by the hundreds of millions of dollars that have been thrown at the problem for over two decades.
People's sexual behaviour is at least partly determined by the conditions in which they live and work (in addition to physiological conditions, hormonal levels, etc). But their health seeking behaviour, their diet, the way they raise their children and their attitude towards education are also constrained by these same conditions. If you want to influence people's sexual behaviour, and especially their attitude towards sexual health and risk, you need to look beyond their sexual behaviour in isolation. This sexual behaviour is likely to be pretty much the same all over the world. But the conditions in which people live and work are very different in Kenya than they are in, say, Ireland.
There are exceptions, but most people I have met who are HIV positive spend their days getting on with the same things as people who are HIV negative, and worrying about the same things, too. They need to earn money, pay bills, raise their children, support their dependents, get by and perhaps even think about the future, if there is any money or energy left over for that. That's why I think a community based organisation that helps people achieve these goals is doing more to reduce the spread of HIV than all the expensive HIV prevention programmes that UNAIDS can think up.
Ribbon of Hope Self Help Group, Nakuru, are working on a number of projects involving both HIV positive and HIV negative people in poor communities. Those projects range from growing food crops and keeping livestock to making things for sale here and abroad, providing various services and spreading intermediate technologies, such as solar cooking. The main thing is that we find income generation activities that are easy for people to do, even if they have very little money and training. If people are able to make or save some money, they will be more self reliant and better able to cope with the many stresses of life.
Today was a great day for solar cooking. The location was ideal, about one kilometer from the Equator, and the sun was hot. We got there in time to set things up, not that that takes very long, and then started to answer the numerous questions people had. We were in a conspicuous area, so groups of people would form and disperse throughout the morning. I have no idea how many people came to see food being cooked using bits of reflective cardboard and pots that were painted black and stuck in a bag. But when the food was cooked, there were around thirty people willing to taste the rice, boiled maize meal and cabbage. If I'd known so many people were coming I would have prepared something more appetizing. But there will be plenty of opportunities to go back and demonstrate again!
Will this prevent HIV from spreading? Not on its own, no. But there are many intermediate technologies that can provide people with cheap or free energy, solar cookers are just one example. We will be demonstrating others when we have the equipment. There are also many ways people can make money. We are researching the ones which will be most suitable for this particular context, poor, rural, isolated, etc. We want each person or family to take on more than one way of making or saving money, in fact, as many as possible each. The Scottish say 'many a mickle makes a muckle', here in East Africa they say 'haba na haba hujaza kibaba' (little by little fills the pot).
Those who collect HIV data are probably not going to note a drop in HIV transmission in this area next year, or perhaps even several years from now. HIV is going to continue to spread in an area where the disease is endemic, where people are poor and lack health facilities, where a good level of education is rare, where basic things like food and water are in scarce supply, where infrastructure is falling apart and where most people don't work.
But Ribbon of Hope aims to reduce poverty to the extent that some people will be able to send their kids to school, pay for their health care and provide them with adequate nutrition and clean water. And when those children leave school, they will have a better chance of being able to find work, being better educated and healthier than the generation before them. They may even have developed some entrepreneurial skills and know good ways to make enough money to do the same for their children.
Most HIV money is spent on very expensive projects that target one disease and only one aspect of that disease, sexual behaviour. As long as the contexts in which this sexual behaviour takes place are ignored, most of the money is being wasted. Health, nutrition, food security, education, infrastructure and many other things are crying out for money but unless sexual behaviour is somehow involved, they will not be funded. This approach has not worked. HIV rates have waxed and waned in certain areas and in certain demographic groups. But rates are still high and the levels of sexual practices said to spread HIV have remained relatively unaffected by the hundreds of millions of dollars that have been thrown at the problem for over two decades.
People's sexual behaviour is at least partly determined by the conditions in which they live and work (in addition to physiological conditions, hormonal levels, etc). But their health seeking behaviour, their diet, the way they raise their children and their attitude towards education are also constrained by these same conditions. If you want to influence people's sexual behaviour, and especially their attitude towards sexual health and risk, you need to look beyond their sexual behaviour in isolation. This sexual behaviour is likely to be pretty much the same all over the world. But the conditions in which people live and work are very different in Kenya than they are in, say, Ireland.
There are exceptions, but most people I have met who are HIV positive spend their days getting on with the same things as people who are HIV negative, and worrying about the same things, too. They need to earn money, pay bills, raise their children, support their dependents, get by and perhaps even think about the future, if there is any money or energy left over for that. That's why I think a community based organisation that helps people achieve these goals is doing more to reduce the spread of HIV than all the expensive HIV prevention programmes that UNAIDS can think up.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Income Generation Activities Galore
Just over a year ago I appealed to people I know, especially on Facebook, to help me to identify possible income generation activities suitable for developing countries where little capital, skills or infrastructure are available. I was overwhelmed by the slightly fewer than two responses I received and the first one didn't fly. So I set about researching on the internet, contacting people and talking to anyone who was prepared to discuss the subject. Now that I have started making a list, I decided to post it here on my blog so that others trying to research the same thing won't have to start right at the beginning. And maybe some people will even contribute to the list!
The list is by no means exhaustive and the categories are just based on the way things look from here. They overlap to some extent and they are in no particular order, though I think the first two are particularly important because local acceptability can make or break an income generation activity, no matter how 'good' it may seem. And some of the activities that are already widely carried out have a lot to recommend them. The community based organisation I work with, Ribbon of Hope, already grow a number of crops and have financed several livestock programmes. But it's time to branch out, try new things, diversify and ensure that people get the maximum benefit possible.
The approach we are likely to take is to ask our clients what gaps they feel there are in their local market, what local materials are available or could be made available. Also, what skills are there, what do people already know how to do. There must be local products that we don't know about and sometimes it turns out that people can make or do things but just hadn't realised the value of that skill. I'm not sure in advance what we will gain from this or how we are going to elicit the sort of information we want, but I think it could be a valuable exercise. Rather than just teaching people a skill or a few skills, we would also like them to be able to assess all the opportunities that exist and consider acquiring as many skills as possible. So that's the first category.
The second category is to get people to help us make an inventory of what could be produced in the area and sold in a local market or business. I'm thinking of things like sunflower or sesame oil, peanut butter, jam from seasonal fruits, honey, butter, cheese or anything else, even things that are already produced but for which there is little or no market, yet. I'm thinking of a campsite I stayed at in Tanzania which sourced things like this in a relatively remote area. The result was spectacular because many of these products here are only available in highly processed, branded forms (which taste disgusting). They should be produced locally if at all possible.
Ribbon of Hope already supports several shambas (smallholdings), which I have mentioned several times on this blog. Those smallholdings should produce everyday foods that people in the area need but they could also produce high value crops, such as sesame and sunflower seed, where clients can also produce the sesame or sunflower oil. These have the advantage of yielding highly nutritious oil cake as a by-product, which makes excellent animal feed. We should produce animal fodder, especially fodder that can be stored for use during dry periods, which are all too regular and protracted here. And there are all sorts of interesting crops we could consider growing, just to keep things diverse.
Dairy cattle, goats and chickens are a well tried income generation scheme and they are usually successful. Because they are such a good bet, they can require a fair amount of capital, which some of the more risky and less well tried schemes don't. But not everyone can afford to take risks. I'd say, get the low risk schemes started first and then add the others in at leisure. We mustn't forget the hides and furs of stock such as cattle, goats and sheep, either. Certainly, there are many uses for sheep wool, regardless of the quality. But another type of livestock that you don't see so much around here is rabbits, especially the very big ones that are bred for meat. There must be many uses for their fur, too.
There are good opportunities for different types of food processing here, especially food drying. Fruit and vegetables can be solar dried at very low cost. Many crops, such as mango, pineapple, banana and tomato flood the market at certain times of the year and a lot is dumped. These are all good when dried. Ribbon of Hope produced a beautiful crop of coriander in the last few weeks and this would be as good dried as fresh, except that it would be a far more viable crop if we could dry large amounts of it. Mushrooms are grown locally and are a potentially lucrative and nutritious crop that is also good dried. Yoghurt is already widely produced, cheese isn't so popular and maybe there's a reason for that. But many things could be made with local ingredients, such as biscuits, cakes, bread, cassava chips and the like.
Some of the areas here are blighted with a monoculture, especially sisal. But I'm sure people could be persuaded to make things of higher value rather than rope, which is how most of the local sisal ends up. We'll see what people who have been surrounded with sisal all their lives come up with. Not too far from here, silk worms are farmed, so that's another possibility. I've mentioned before the possibility of producing reusable sanitary pads. There are probably going to be lots of objections but many people, especially young girls, can't afford disposable ones so it's worth some effort. Leather goods may be another possibility, especially if local people are successfully breeding relevant livestock. No doubt there are other artisanal products, such as pottery, candles and whatever else. Sorry for being vague but the gaps will be filled in eventually.
Ribbon of Hope has already funded a successful project selling water and this raised surprisingly large amounts of money. Another possibility would be to pasteurize water using solar cookers or solar heaters and selling it. Included in this category, not many people in this dry province of Rift Valley use irrigation, nor do many people harvest rainwater. This is short-sighted and even journalists are apt to bemoan the fact that there is an unwise dependency on rain fed agriculture throughout Kenya (if journalists notice, it’s probably been a problem for decades). It's time to change this, even if it's only to a small extent. Equally, many people don't irrigate their land, even when there is a source of water close by. Since Ribbon of Hope started irrigating its fields, neighbouring farmers have started borrowing their pump. So it is catching on!
One of my favourite types of income generation activity or cost saving activity relates to fuel or energy. I have mentioned solar cookers, such as simple reflective boxes or more complicated parabolic cookers. These are great for cooking food, drying food and for pasteurizing water or milk. Some of our projects involve milk production so free pasteurization would help reduce costs a lot. I've also mentioned fuel briquettes made from waste of various kinds. People could produce these for their own household but they could also produce them for sale in the local area. Wood and charcoal, the most common cooking fuels, are expensive and likely to go up in price. Solar is cheaper, cleaner and better for the environment and could be used to supplement other sources of fuel. Biogas is more difficult to produce but we are hoping to get some to train us in how to produce the stuff.
Some trees and shrubs could be a useful addition to any shamba. The Kenyan government is thinking of introducing a law about people growing a certain number of trees per acre. True to form, they are not giving any advice as to what trees should be grown and which should be avoided (there are some serious problems that result from choosing the wrong trees). And people with very small, possibly rented shambas, will not want to risk reducing their yield by sticking something unproductive in their fields. But there are productive trees and ones that are good for the soil. There are some that produce fruit without compromising the field crops and others that produce oils and even animal fodder. There are trees that can benefit in various ways, so these should be carefully selected.
Finally, some organisations end up with assets that they only sometimes use, such as equipment and tools. These could be rented out to neighbouring farmers or swapped for other benefits, such as labour or tools that are lacking. Tools and machinery are prohibitively expensive here, which is why so many farmers try to fly by the seat of their pants and sometimes fail. Even rainwater harvesting and irrigation involve costs that small farmers can't always meet. But they might be able to share, for a fee, of course. Ribbon of Hope's neighbours have increased their yields so much in the last few months by using their petrol pump that they could easily afford to pay a small fee.
Well, that's it for the moment, but that's quite a list. I'll continue researching and noting progress (and problems) and I'll add links to further information when I can get around to it. I hope people find this list useful and if anyone has other ideas for income generation activities, please let me know. Thank you in anticipation!
The list is by no means exhaustive and the categories are just based on the way things look from here. They overlap to some extent and they are in no particular order, though I think the first two are particularly important because local acceptability can make or break an income generation activity, no matter how 'good' it may seem. And some of the activities that are already widely carried out have a lot to recommend them. The community based organisation I work with, Ribbon of Hope, already grow a number of crops and have financed several livestock programmes. But it's time to branch out, try new things, diversify and ensure that people get the maximum benefit possible.
The approach we are likely to take is to ask our clients what gaps they feel there are in their local market, what local materials are available or could be made available. Also, what skills are there, what do people already know how to do. There must be local products that we don't know about and sometimes it turns out that people can make or do things but just hadn't realised the value of that skill. I'm not sure in advance what we will gain from this or how we are going to elicit the sort of information we want, but I think it could be a valuable exercise. Rather than just teaching people a skill or a few skills, we would also like them to be able to assess all the opportunities that exist and consider acquiring as many skills as possible. So that's the first category.
The second category is to get people to help us make an inventory of what could be produced in the area and sold in a local market or business. I'm thinking of things like sunflower or sesame oil, peanut butter, jam from seasonal fruits, honey, butter, cheese or anything else, even things that are already produced but for which there is little or no market, yet. I'm thinking of a campsite I stayed at in Tanzania which sourced things like this in a relatively remote area. The result was spectacular because many of these products here are only available in highly processed, branded forms (which taste disgusting). They should be produced locally if at all possible.
Ribbon of Hope already supports several shambas (smallholdings), which I have mentioned several times on this blog. Those smallholdings should produce everyday foods that people in the area need but they could also produce high value crops, such as sesame and sunflower seed, where clients can also produce the sesame or sunflower oil. These have the advantage of yielding highly nutritious oil cake as a by-product, which makes excellent animal feed. We should produce animal fodder, especially fodder that can be stored for use during dry periods, which are all too regular and protracted here. And there are all sorts of interesting crops we could consider growing, just to keep things diverse.
Dairy cattle, goats and chickens are a well tried income generation scheme and they are usually successful. Because they are such a good bet, they can require a fair amount of capital, which some of the more risky and less well tried schemes don't. But not everyone can afford to take risks. I'd say, get the low risk schemes started first and then add the others in at leisure. We mustn't forget the hides and furs of stock such as cattle, goats and sheep, either. Certainly, there are many uses for sheep wool, regardless of the quality. But another type of livestock that you don't see so much around here is rabbits, especially the very big ones that are bred for meat. There must be many uses for their fur, too.
There are good opportunities for different types of food processing here, especially food drying. Fruit and vegetables can be solar dried at very low cost. Many crops, such as mango, pineapple, banana and tomato flood the market at certain times of the year and a lot is dumped. These are all good when dried. Ribbon of Hope produced a beautiful crop of coriander in the last few weeks and this would be as good dried as fresh, except that it would be a far more viable crop if we could dry large amounts of it. Mushrooms are grown locally and are a potentially lucrative and nutritious crop that is also good dried. Yoghurt is already widely produced, cheese isn't so popular and maybe there's a reason for that. But many things could be made with local ingredients, such as biscuits, cakes, bread, cassava chips and the like.
Some of the areas here are blighted with a monoculture, especially sisal. But I'm sure people could be persuaded to make things of higher value rather than rope, which is how most of the local sisal ends up. We'll see what people who have been surrounded with sisal all their lives come up with. Not too far from here, silk worms are farmed, so that's another possibility. I've mentioned before the possibility of producing reusable sanitary pads. There are probably going to be lots of objections but many people, especially young girls, can't afford disposable ones so it's worth some effort. Leather goods may be another possibility, especially if local people are successfully breeding relevant livestock. No doubt there are other artisanal products, such as pottery, candles and whatever else. Sorry for being vague but the gaps will be filled in eventually.
Ribbon of Hope has already funded a successful project selling water and this raised surprisingly large amounts of money. Another possibility would be to pasteurize water using solar cookers or solar heaters and selling it. Included in this category, not many people in this dry province of Rift Valley use irrigation, nor do many people harvest rainwater. This is short-sighted and even journalists are apt to bemoan the fact that there is an unwise dependency on rain fed agriculture throughout Kenya (if journalists notice, it’s probably been a problem for decades). It's time to change this, even if it's only to a small extent. Equally, many people don't irrigate their land, even when there is a source of water close by. Since Ribbon of Hope started irrigating its fields, neighbouring farmers have started borrowing their pump. So it is catching on!
One of my favourite types of income generation activity or cost saving activity relates to fuel or energy. I have mentioned solar cookers, such as simple reflective boxes or more complicated parabolic cookers. These are great for cooking food, drying food and for pasteurizing water or milk. Some of our projects involve milk production so free pasteurization would help reduce costs a lot. I've also mentioned fuel briquettes made from waste of various kinds. People could produce these for their own household but they could also produce them for sale in the local area. Wood and charcoal, the most common cooking fuels, are expensive and likely to go up in price. Solar is cheaper, cleaner and better for the environment and could be used to supplement other sources of fuel. Biogas is more difficult to produce but we are hoping to get some to train us in how to produce the stuff.
Some trees and shrubs could be a useful addition to any shamba. The Kenyan government is thinking of introducing a law about people growing a certain number of trees per acre. True to form, they are not giving any advice as to what trees should be grown and which should be avoided (there are some serious problems that result from choosing the wrong trees). And people with very small, possibly rented shambas, will not want to risk reducing their yield by sticking something unproductive in their fields. But there are productive trees and ones that are good for the soil. There are some that produce fruit without compromising the field crops and others that produce oils and even animal fodder. There are trees that can benefit in various ways, so these should be carefully selected.
Finally, some organisations end up with assets that they only sometimes use, such as equipment and tools. These could be rented out to neighbouring farmers or swapped for other benefits, such as labour or tools that are lacking. Tools and machinery are prohibitively expensive here, which is why so many farmers try to fly by the seat of their pants and sometimes fail. Even rainwater harvesting and irrigation involve costs that small farmers can't always meet. But they might be able to share, for a fee, of course. Ribbon of Hope's neighbours have increased their yields so much in the last few months by using their petrol pump that they could easily afford to pay a small fee.
Well, that's it for the moment, but that's quite a list. I'll continue researching and noting progress (and problems) and I'll add links to further information when I can get around to it. I hope people find this list useful and if anyone has other ideas for income generation activities, please let me know. Thank you in anticipation!
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