Income boost to Malawi village |
The number of tin-roofed homes in a Malawian village can be a telling barometer of the economic health of the community.
And such is the case in Nankumba, where the sun bounces brightly off the corrugated zinc that is but one indicator of the modernisation that has taken place in this remote rural community at Kalembo, in southern Malawi.
It’s five years since Self Help Africa first began working with the people of Nankumba. The community has seen much change, of which tin roofs are just one part. Elsewhere, home owners will show off the cement that has replaced their traditional mud floors, while farmers point to compounds of healthy livestock and fields in which cash crops are being grown alongside traditional staples.
Lufeyo Kachepa hasn’t yet replaced his traditional straw roof, but he plans to do so. The 33-year-old father of four is proud though of the concrete floor he laid last year. “It is much better. We brush out the dust very day,” he says of the work, made possible by the money earned from the sale of peanuts (groundnut) to a local buyer.
“When Self Help first came here we were poorer than other people, we were not producing enough food to survive for the whole year, and most people were earning very little,” Lufeyo says. “A lot has changed. Next year I want to get a tin roof, and I also plan to start saving, so that I can send all of my children to school.”
68 year old Felix Benongwe talks too of the economic benefits of the Self Help Africa project, saying that he is earning much more since starting goat rearing in Nankumba. Felix says that the trade in goats has been good to him, while he has increased his crop yields since starting to use animal manure as fertilizer.
30 villagers in Nankumba now rear goats, with more joining in the activity each year under a ‘pass-on scheme’ that requires that the original ‘startup’ animals be returned once the recipient’s herd is been established.
In neighbouring Chim’dipiti village, 73-yearold Bakali Maulidi says that he has been saving money from the sale of groundnuts, so that some day he will be able to realise his dream of owning a cow. “I am saving now, and when I own a cow, my economic problems will be over. There is a demand for milk here, and I could earn a good living.”
21 households took part in the initial Self Help Africa groundnut project in Chim’dipiti, and over 200 farmers are now involved. |
