I get to worry when I talk to the poorest farmers in Northern Malawi, where we work when I look at the seeds they use. They are all hybrids. For Maize and Rice and Cabbage and Soya and even tomato…all hybrids. Worse still when we have a pest on our farm,they can list off a collection of the most noxious chemicals all available in Mzuzu. If the likes of Montsanto and their like with questionable pasts, can be bothered with one of the poorest countries on the planet, they mean business!! The fact that a chemical company, posing as something altogether different can OWN patented seeds, puts doubt over the safety of the world’s food supply.
The United States Government has been financing research on a genetic engineering technology which, when commercialized, will give its owners the power to control the food seed of entire nations or regions. The Government has been working quietly on this technology since 1983. Now, the little-known company that has been working in this genetic research with the Government’s US Department of Agriculture– Delta & Pine Land– is about to become part of the world’s largest supplier of patented genetically-modified seeds (GMO), Monsanto Corporation of St. Louis, Missouri.
Relations between Monsanto, Delta & Pine Land and the USDA, on closer scrutiny, show the deep and dark side of the much-heralded genetic revolution in agriculture. It proves deep-held suspicions that the Gene Revolution is not about ‘solving the world hunger problem’ as its advocates claim. It’s about handing over control of the seeds for mankind’s basic food supply—rice, corn, soybeans, wheat, even fruit, vegetables and cotton—to privately owned corporations. Once the seeds and their use are patented and controlled by one or several private agribusiness multinationals, it will be they who can decide whether or not a particular customer—let’s say for argument, China or Brazil or India or Japan—whether they will or won’t get the patented seeds from Monsanto, or from one of its licensee GMO partners like Bayer Crop Sciences, Syngenta or DuPont’s Pioneer Hi-Bred International.
While most of us don’t bother to reflect on where the corn in the box of Kellogg’s Corn Flakes or the rice in a box of Uncle Ben’s Converted Rice come from, when we grab it from the supermarket shelf, they all must originate with seeds. Seeds can either be taken by a farmer from the previous season’ seeds, and planted to produce the next harvest. Or, seeds can be bought new each harvest season, from the companies which sell their seeds.
The advent of commercial GMO seeds in the early 1990’s allowed companies like Monsanto, DuPont or Dow Chemicals to go from supplying agriculture chemical herbicides like Roundup, to patenting genetically altered seeds for basic farm crops like corn, rice, soybeans or wheat. For almost a quarter century, since 1983, the US Government has quietly been working to perfect a genetically engineered technique whereby farmers would be forced to turn to their seed supplier each harvest to get new seeds. The seeds would only produce one harvest. After that the seeds from that harvest would commit ‘suicide’ and be unusable.
There has been much hue and cry, correctly so, that this process, patented ‘suicide’ seeds, officially termed GURTs (Genetic Use Restriction Technologies), is a threat to poor farmers in developing countries like India or Brazil, who traditionally save their own seeds for the next planting. In fact, GURTs, more popularly referred to as Terminator seeds for the brutal manner in which they kill off plant reproduction possibilities, is a threat to the food security as well of North America, Western Europe, Japan and anywhere Monsanto and its elite cartel of GMO agribusiness partners enters a market.
There is more at: http://tothedust.wordpress.com/2011/06/07/monsanto-buys-‘terminator’-seeds-company-3/
Since my early days in Secondary school, I have always wondered at the benefits in history as a subject: Why, because nothing ever seems to be learned. We just repeat the same mistakes and re invent the same old wheels
Asia’s Green Revolution was an economic and ecological disaster and should have taught a final definitive answer to the damage intensive farming can cause. But what are all the gurus teaching Africa to do, you got it; repeat the same old failed model
Sustainable farming techniques are being sidelined in favour of a quick-fix solution; modern seed varieties (MVs) that produce better yields if treated with synthetic fertiliser and pesticides.
Such inputs are expensive and the seeds need frequent replacement. In Asia, the use of MVs in a head-long rush for bumper harvests has been shown to accelerate soil degradation, destroy crop diversity and encourage farmers to go into debt.
As Africa seeks to banish hunger, sustainable alternatives that can boost production, incomes and food security, help conserve soil and water and build resilience to climate change remain badly are treated as a backward joke, because a myriad of per diem agents as advising a better way and I’m sure the Mont Santos of this world are contributing to the pot as well. I have no axe to grind with either side in this biased debate between the financial and farming world, but I do know how the poor farmers in Northern Malawi should go, and I would like my grandchildren to know what good soil is, and what noxious pesticides can do to our health.
Speaking of grandchildren as we, today, await a second bundle of joy, I feel that the good message will be handed on very well. Our oldest has already made the move. Having done a PhD in Chemistry and then spent a couple of years in the strange world of agrichemicals, he went to South America for a few months, which showed him in the error of his ways. Re returned, gave up the job and now plays music full time. (That’s his story). Of course this weekend playing at the Cambridge Folk Festival is not wholly unattractive!!
The Green revolution of Asia should have warned Africa, but maybe the usual corruption, by the really corrupt, deliberately ignored the possible lessons which include widespread soil degradation, increased vulnerability to pests, farmer debts, a decline in traditional farming knowledge, increased inequality in rural communities, loss of biodiversity and increased greenhouse gas emissions from industrial agriculture.
In recent years, interested parties including the World Bank, the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID), USAID, the Rockefeller and Gates Foundations and African governments have promoted a Green Revolution for Africa where solutions they advocate seem to focus too narrowly around promoting synthetic fertilisers and pesticides, which were behind many of Asia’s problems.
There are concerns about a number of initiatives funded by the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) founded in 2006 by the Rockefeller and Bill and Melinda Gates’ Foundations, and supported by DFID (and maybe the Irish Government).
Working in 12 African countries, it funds important projects promoting improved seeds, soil health, market access for farmers and finance and policy work. It also aims to increase productivity by improving farmers’ access to mainly hybrid seeds – part of the MV range – and inputs such as chemical fertilisers.
A recent report says that AGRA funded agro-dealers in eight countries are selling ‘ever more quantities of chemicals to farmers and increasing their reliance on inputs’.
In Malawi, where AGRA operates, ‘the principal beneficiaries of these efforts are the key suppliers of the inputs, mainly Monsanto,’ it says.
To me it looks like there is a pact to promote particulat products
The report says 70 per cent of the world’s nearly 1 billion hungry are smallholder farmers and the rural landless who have been long locked into a cycle of low productivity, lack of assets and services and weak market power.
Today, they also face the effects of climate change, land degradation and ground water depletion.
The report gives examples of successful sustainable agriculture techniques that can help.
They include:
- Diversification: cultivating a wide range of crops; introducing mixed systems of crops, livestock and aquaculture; and increasing biodiversity
- Nutrient recycling (waste from one sub-system is used as an input in another)
- Maximum use of renewable, locally available resources (such as seeds, manure, mulch, nutrient-fixing plants)
Low external-input organic soil and crop management techniques such as integrated pest management and zero or low till farming, enabling a radically reduced reliance on, or complete avoidance of, synthetic fertilisers and pesticides, looks like a no brainer, but what has that got to do with anything.
We use these techniques on our farms in Northern Malawi and encourage the farmers we work with to do the same. It’s a tough job, because even if we show them, there is such a hurricane coming from the experts and gurus that seeing is no longer good enough. Our first Ministry ally has come on board, but as I said before it’s like bows and arrows against the remote controlled drones
But after all: Who the hell do We think W are. And maybe History need to get off the page.
Development aid toAfricahas been flowing for decades, but the results have been paltry. Instead, recipients have merely become dependent and initiative has been snuffed out. It is time to reform the system.
Development aid toAfricais a blessing for all those directly involved — both on the giving end and on the receiving end. Functionaries on the donor side, at least those abroad, earn good money. Many of those on the receiving end, for their part, know how to organize things in such a way that their own personal interests don’t get short shrift.
There is no reason for these two groups to be interested in changing the status quo. Yet even so, some within their ranks are starting to suggest the situation as it stands cannot continue. The development aid of the past 50 years, they say, is hardly justifiable given the disappointing results. Even individual donors, who know little about how development aid works in practice, increasingly sense that something might be amiss.
They’re right. The aid has failed to a large extent.
We have taken on too much responsibility for solving African problems. We have essentially educated them to, when problems arise, call for foreign aid first rather than trying to find solutions themselves.
This attitude has become deeply rooted inAfrica. This self-incapacitation is one of the most regrettable results of development cooperation thus far. Poorly designed development aid has made people dependent and accustomed them to a situation of perpetual assistance, preventing them from taking the initiative themselves. It is this situation which represents the greatest damage done, far worse than the enormous material losses engendered by failed aid projects. And there are many.Africais strewn with idle tractors, ruined equipment and run-down buildings.
Deeply Rooted Misconceptions
The mothering mindset, widespread in industrialized countries for decades, is in direct violation of the subsidiarity principle. This principle states that providers of aid, whether private or governmental, should not assume any duties that could be carried out by the receiver country itself. Furthermore, it mandates that aid be given such that those providing it can cease giving as soon as possible.
Plenty of Lip Service
The subsidiarity principle should have been key to designing this cooperation from the beginning. In reality, it has played far too small a role.
The donor side is certainly not lacking in theories, clever strategies or concepts — international development agencies have cabinets bursting with them. What’s lacking is a basic understanding and clarity when applying principles. The realization that northern countries cannot develop the South — that people and societies can only do so themselves — is given plenty of lip service. In practice, however, the idea hardly plays a role at all.
Development experts sent to Africa come from societies that tend to value efficiency and speed to a greater degree than is generally found inAfrica. Furthermore, foreign aid workers, as a rule, only spend a few years in a target country. Their desire to “achieve something” often leads them to do more than they should according to the subsidiarity principle. But by doing so, they inhibitAfrica’s own momentum and prevent it from growing stronger.
A further breach of the subsidiarity principle is found in the existence not only of the immense national and international development agencies, from the German Society for Technical Cooperation (GTZ) to the World Bank, but also of myriad private organizations both small and large that cover the continent with their network of charitable works.
Occupying Powers
These are the de facto occupying powers of the post-colonial period.
The second tenet of the subsidiarity principle holds that aid should become dispensable as quickly as possible. InGermanyalone, the livelihoods of up to 100,000 people are dependent on the development aid industry. One can imagine the outrage that would result should someone seek to dismantle these agencies. But exactly that should ultimately be the raison d’etre of these agencies. After decades of providing aid, their continued existence is proof of their failure.
It is contrary to the logic of subsidiarity to give a person something that he or she could acquire or produce on their own. Yet in the hopes of doing good, we have done exactly that far too often in recent decades, whether it be a grain mill in a village or a council of GTZ experts for a government ministry. A considerable portion ofGermany’s bilateral aid, amounting to more than €1.5 billion ($2 billion) per year, is given as grants — in other words, as a gift. Indeed, all of the least developed countries tend to receive foreign aid in the form of grants. Two thirds of the countries in sub-SaharanAfricabelong to this category.
These perpetual gifts have made partners into beggars, ones who no longer value the things they have been given and consequently have not maintained them well. Apart from a few exceptions, emergency aid being one example, free aid was and remains fundamentally wrong.
Part 2: The Question of Money
Aid given with no strings attached robs the recipient of competence. The method has resulted in a divorce from reality inAfrica, at all levels of society. It’s time to accustom our partners to normalcy — those who want to initiate a project but lack the necessary funds to do so, must take out a loan and pay it back. Indeed, this is where aid from abroad can make a significant contribution: by seeing to it that everyone committed to development has access to loans, and particularly by supporting microcredit programs.
The urge of foreign aid workers to quickly produce results promotes quantitative thinking and gives short shrift to efforts aimed at helping locals learn how to develop themselves. One example of this erroneous notion is the goal among donor companies, adopted 40 years ago, to donate 0.7 percent of GDP in the form of development aid.
It makes no sense to establish amounts before discussing the projects that should be funded with that money. The worst thing about this discussion is that it, once again, is purely quantitative. It feeds the disastrous attitude that more money necessarily means more development. In this way, lessons learned over the past decades are completely ignored.
Instead, people like Bono and Bob Geldof are allowed open access to our governments, where they propagate the “more money” idea — and where they become stumbling blocks to African development.
Nothing to Do with Development Aid
It is easier to evaluate numbers than the qualitative effects of development aid. We cannot develop others. Only endogenous development — what people and societies achieve themselves with the power of their own minds and hands — deserves the name. No one can be developed from the outside.
Many would argue that when development aid brings water pipes and roads toAfrica, it stimulates and strengthens local efforts. But perhaps the opposite is true, and the more we do, the more likely it is that our partners will sit back, because foreign aid is taking care of things to their satisfaction. Although the latter has proven to be true a thousand times over, development aid functionaries still overlook it with astonishing consistency.
Pouring further billions into funds for the climate, AIDS and other issues may, in fact, be necessary. But it has nothing to do with development aid. These payments will not cause political leaders in theSahelcountries, for example, to make more of an effort to combat soil erosion on their own. These countries could long ago have begun doing something on this issue — they could even have used their masses of unemployed youth for the job. But so far, in cases where something has been done, it generally was the product of foreign initiative and not endogenous.
Our development aid has not lent enough support to the efforts of people inAfricathemselves. Often it has even been an impediment, because our aid was focused too much on the object and too little on the subject. Too often the project or program, not the people, was the focus. The aid passed the people by.
The result has placedAfricain an undignified position — and no amount of money from the enormous, globally organized network of aid organizations will free them. Only Africans themselves can accomplish that.
Mary often asks me who I’m writing for, but I never really know, who reads or who cares, but being just off the plane after 32 hours travel, maybe it’s therapeutic!!.
Six weeks in Malawi was again exciting, enlightening and generally crazy. We had the sudden death of the President, his body sent to South Africa to allow time for an attempted coup, the grand tour in the golden trailer RIP 1, the millions of dollars, allegedly, found in bags in his bedroom and in his gold plated mausoleum, the vice president sworn-in, a palpable sense of relief and hope among our village friends, and the certain possibility of a better future. We’re told, by our Malawian friends, that Ireland, almost alone, supported him to the bitter end, something they always question.
In Malawi, this was the hungry season when most villagers are down to one meal a day, still in the cold, rainy season. The maize has grown if you have fertilizer and the wet, red soil sticks to everything.
We had hardly drawn a breath of the rarefied air, before we were reminded of our commitment to a 200 strong women’s cluster in Doroba. Four of their representatives had trudged 30 km, in the downpour, to our pump factory, in the city to say thanks for the fifty pumps, but what about our preschools? In only one year of self help success, these shy, helpless and hopeless women had become eloquent, forceful and focused. Yippee!! They knew their community needs and our requirements and had a list of five areas where preschools had already begun operations, with carers, the use of a building, a school committee and the chiefs on board. Mary decided that we should meet each community separately and make sure that they all understood that they needed WORKING committees and school gardens for a feeding programme. By the end of six weeks we now have 11 new preschools (17 in all), where all the carers have had one day’s hands-on training, with Mary and her crew, just to get them started. I have’nt mentioned the cratered tracks, the desperate journeys, the nightmares for the bony-assed!, the magical scenery and the dire poverty. All that matters now is that these communities have a common mission, to get their little ones to school and keep them there. In these remote rural areas education is prized.
Meanwhile we opened our second adult education class in another deprived area of Mzuzu. Both will be models in a new push for adult literacy. While working closely with the District Education Manager we will continue to move the process forward in the villages with preschools.
Continuing with education, our volunteers from DIT, continued work on an English language project, for secondary school begun last year, while Mary gave the keynote address, and a workshop, at an In-service day on School Management. Plans are well under way, with the Education Ministry, for a two week training programme, by experienced, Irish teachers, to enable Malawian teachers to deliver training to their peers.
Despite the fuel, forex and sugar shortages, we managed to deliver 160 pumps to our partners in Zambia which will enable them to bring clean drinking to over 70,000 remote villagers. Considering the population of Roscommon is 63,896, I figure this is a bit of an achievement!
Oh, Our beehives are going great and we bought 2 piglets for breeding on the farm.
Land ownership in Malawi is very low especially for women, but in the last ten days we managed to buy 23 acres of land, in trust, for a group of 21 women and three men to enable them to set up a model, commercial, co-operative farm
It has the backing of all nine chiefs in the area, as well as support from the Ministry of Agriculture and Agro forestry, all of whom attended the hand-over meeting, at one day’s notice, under their own steam and without allowances. (maybe a first)
All this was achieved by a unique farmer, Dupu Mshanga, who will facilitate the project.
The Wells for Zoë funding will be repaid by the end of four years and then passed on to a similar project elsewhere.
They have plans for cows and pigs, (with the help of the Ministry) paprika (for which we have a market) and pidgeon pea, Bananas and bees (we have a market for the honey), sunn hemp and velvet bean, no organic fertilizer or chemical pesticides.
These self help women will achieve all this because they are women, and because they are inspired. They will empower themselves, because they are the only ones who can do that. The final remark by Dupu was that they were never the recipients of Aid, they can do it by themselves and while they appreciate our help, he agreed that, in five years, W4Z would have convinced them that they had done it all by themselves.
“The human rights situation is degenerating rapidly. This year has seen the government, headed by President Bingu wa Mutharika, become an authoritarian regime openly resistant to criticism and human rights governance
In July, citizens of Malawi took to the streets to protest against fuel shortages, high cost of living, unemployment, repressive legislation and poor governance
The police opened fire on unarmed protestors, allegedly resulting in the death of 18 people. Journalists in particular were singled out, and were arrested, harassed and beaten. A media black-out was ordered and the press was banned from airing live broadcasts of the protests.
(Sanyu Awori, December 16, 2011, Nyasa Times)
Acute shortage of forex and fuel is resulting in shortage of even the most basic of foodstuffs like salt.
The expulsion of the British High Commissioner (the first ever in the Commonwealth) has resulted in withdrawl of much needed funding for the health care system.
Other foreign donors, including Germany and the US have suspended aid to Malawi as well, citing poor governance . The African Commission on Human and Peoples Rights recently passed a resolution that calls on the Government to end the campaign of intimidation against civil society.
(Sanyu Awori, December 16, 2011, Nyasa Times)
The fertilizer subsidy, on which the whole plan for food security was based has been drastically reduced, where even the extremely poor will not benefit this year. Even though this exercise was hailed and supported by all the gurus of the Aid World, there is no exit strategy or plan B in place. The plan supports maize production using hybrid maize seeds and chemical fertilizer which is subsidised by a grant worth 80% of the cost. In Northern Malawi where we work, years of use of such fertilizer has depleted the soil, made it acidic and robbed it of organic material. Anyway, who knows where intergovernmental funding ever goes in Malawi or in many other countries where accountability is difficult to achieve. Boxes are ticked and more money comes. Now ordinary, thinking Malawians wonder where all the donor money has gone and what has it all achieved.
OUR SHORT HISTORY
We went to Malawi in 2005 and got a brief glimpse of a sub Saharan country for the first time. My abiding memory is looking at hungry women and girls, needlessly hauling dirty water long distances, for family needs, while an array of broken pumps lay unfixed and certainly unfixable by local communities. I also noted that the depth of the water table was in the 3 to 6 metre range. (Six months later, I visited a pump where I celebrated its installation, with hundreds of villagers to find that the water level had dropped and the pump was useless because it had a limit of 6 meter depth, a normal story).
Pump broke and was removed. Villagers returned to the stream.
I woke up at 4am one morning before we left and vowed (after I ranted) to do something about it. It wasn’t easy. I sent hundreds of emails to individuals and organisations. The organisations who did reply suggested I give them the money, they were the experts and what would I know about it anyway. Of course this attitude prevails. Finally I contacted Professor Richard Carter, then in Cranfield University,UK and now Technical head of Water Aid and Chairman of RWSN, and then we were on our journey. We located Richard Cansdale, in Hartburn outside Newcastle in the north of Englsnd. He had spent years developing a pump originally designed by Alan Jones in New Zealand and our quest was over. This was and is the pump which really does what it says on the tin!
SOLUTIONS
Malawi is a pretty simple place technologically. Its not really a place for big, all singing, all dancing solutions, out of scale with what they already have have. Forty years of major funding has left the country poorer. Yes, the country was better off before all this democracy and Aid arrived. Throwing money at the problems of Sub Saharan Africa has not worked (but money, on its own, rarely works anywhere).Malawi instead is about simple solutions, like earthen dams, open pollinated seeds, green manure, locally brewed pesticides, simple pumps that can be fixed by local women. All the broken pumps we fix were hailed as village level maintenance, but no one ever said what village and what range of equipment it should have. Many pumps are installed by experts who then disappear, without a trace or worse still a maintenance plan or the where-with-all to implement it, if it existed
Our attitude is to solve problems where we find them, simply, sensibly and sustainably
This year, we decided to source all pump making materials in Malawi so we redesigned our pump to suit the materials available. We now make it with less manufactured parts, with readily available materials and after field trials, its a winner.
Seed retailers in Malawi have only hybrid seeds, so we bought land, imported O.P. seeds and multiply them. This year we produced about 500kg of seeds.
Apples from Irish Seed Savers
Malawi grows no apples, so we brought out rootstock and scions (with European Passports) from Irish Seed Savers in Scarriff, Co. Clare and we had our first crop after two years. This year we have nearly 600 seedlings with the scions generously donated and delivered by the staff at Irish Seed Savers.
Vitamin C in a diet helps the ARV drugs to give improved quality of life to HIV/AIDS sufferers. We began a project to produce improved variety citrus seedlings by budding on to local lemon rootstock. We produced over 10,000 improved variety citrus seedlings over the last two years for distribution.
After water, firewood is a huge chore for women, so we encourage villagers to grow thousands of acacia trees. We give them the seeds, which are inexpensive, often in return for lemon seeds!
We have researched in excess of a hundred plants on the farm. One is red amaranth. I recently found that in Northern Zambia they label it the plant for pregnant women!. High in iron, it helps greatly with anaemia and as post natal hemhorrage, is a huge maternal killer in Malawi, we are spreading the message and the seeds (1 amaranth plant can produce 60,000 seeds). We now grow it at the birthing centre and ask Lilian to promote it at her pre natal classes and among women generally. In fact we come across it regularly in villages but they think it’s a weed and seriously undervalue it. Such good news spreads fast
A recent survey with our SHG cluster showed lack of labour as a real issue at maize planting time. We went to our friends in Zambia to look at their conservation agriculture programme using minimum till. With the use of lime and local maize seeds give much increased yields. We have sent our guys to work and learn in Zambia and will mainstream the system on their return. Big problem, simple solution. Of course changing culture and tradition is never easy.
Maize won’t grow without fertilizer and that’s too expensive is the mantra of subsistence farmers. In researching a solution we found a range of plants which add nitrogen like sunn hemp, velvet bean and tephrosia, which we have now used for 4 years with seriously improved yields and no bought-in fertilizer. This year we have added a new contender, Faidherbia Albida which has the best potential of all for the small scale, subsistence farmer. Its a big tree, which loses its leaves in the rainy season, contributes enough complete fertilizer to grow 4 tonnes of maize per hectare year after year. What a plant
Canzee Pump in action providing clean, safe, drinking water
The Canzee pump, conceived in New Zealand and worked on for years, by Richard Cansdale, in the UK, is an amazing piece of simple ingenuity. Mainly plastic in construction, it consists of two pipes one inside the other, with two simple non return valves using the inner tube of a bicycle, has one moving part with no friction, it seems to last forever, costs 30 Euro to make in our factory in Mzuzu and most importantly, if it does go wrong (rare occurrence), the women who use it can fix it with three nails.
The parts for this pump came initially from the UK and with the duty charged by Malawi Revenue, were now expensive. The solution was to design a new version of the pump with all materials available in Malawi. In the redesign process we have fewer manufactured parts. These new Zoe pumps are in use since June and working without a hitch.
2011
We visited Malawi three times this year, April/May, July/August and Oct/Nov. Many of our friends and neighbours now ask are you coming or going? Malawi is now our second home and we continue to experience the wonderful hospitality of Br Aidan and the St John of God Community in Mzuzu and all our friends in an ever expanding area, impacting thousands of people, all very poor, all amazing to be as good as they are. We know our people and they know us, Its a wonderful place to be, frustrating and maddening at times, reasons to laugh and cry every day, but never mundane. With everyone’s help we have had amazing successes since this time in 2005. The following is a glimpse of what we have been up to
Clean water to 125000 villagers, for the first time
The success story continues, with 10 pumps recently brought to the copper belt region of Zambia, by Chris and Daniel from Lifeline in Zambia(a Danish NGO), who have a plan to install 1000 of our pumps in the next three years. The first pumps will be made in our factory in Mzuzu, followed by a new pump factory in Zambia, with expertise and training from Malawians, their nearest neighbour
31 acre farm
This is now a University of practical learning for many farmers in Northern Malawi, where the hostel on the farm provides accommodation for students. The co-operative management, planning and day to day hard work is done by four men and five women. Next year we will mainstream a new programme on Conservation Farming when our people have had training in Zambia.
Growing and multiplying green manure seeds, Sunn hemp, tephrosia and velvet bean, for distribution is important, as is research on the use of Tephrosia, Dahlia and others to produce an effective local pesticide.
High on the agenda is the production of improved variety citrus, Mango, Guava, avocado and apples. At the moment we have about 9,000 various seedlings ready for distribution, as well as trees for reforestation. At the moment we have 108 varieties of plant, (this includes 5 types of spinach and 4 varieties of sweet potato.)
The farm is based in Lusangazi, (11 km from Mzuzu City) where we support many other community efforts, like:
The Birthing Centre continues to meet many needs, including ante and post natal clinics, early childhood care, and home based care for HIV/AIDS.
Birthing Centre in action during a visit from the Central Hospital
A new health centre with a house for a resident nurse and attendant is now planned following a decision by the Ministry to appoint and pay the medics. W4Z will assist by providing cement and roofing, while the community take care of site, bricks, sand and all labour
Padre Pio is the local secondary school. We supported the building of the school and the construction of a hostel for girl boarders.
Gogo Club brings us into contact with grannies who have to rear orphan grandchildren. We provide vegetables and fruit trees from the farm, regular gift parcels (soap, oil, sugar, salt and matches)
ACTIVITIES IN OTHER AREAS
Over the time we have built 1 Volunteer house,1 Hostel on the farm for accommodating student farmers,1 Boys quarters, 4000 sq ft factory unit, 6 Staff houses. We have also managed to build a birthing centre, and support the building of 18 primary school classrooms, 1 classroom for a girls secondary in Chitipa Catholic parish and one Secondary school and hostel for girls for the Capuchin order.
Latest Preschool Building in Mgomphola (unfinished as yet!)
Support 6 preschools with 500 two to six year olds.
Casca is our preschool trainer and caregiver. He visits the six preschools we support on his bicycle, and has empowered the village caregivers and porridge ladies by supervising and encouraging them. He gives weekly reports on all their activities.
Have developed and deliver an in-service programme for primary teachers in co-operation with the District Education Managers and School Inspectorate, in the Northern region, which is becoming the basis of professional development in schools.
The second course was carried out in July and August by Niamh O’Brien, Fiona Gearty, Maureen McFeeley, Noreen O’Riordan Máire McHugh and Mary Coyne, in conjunction with Anna Sichinga, District Education manager, Mzuzu. 200 teachers attended in 4 centres. As English is the language of education our objective was to facilitate the teaching of English in the early years through games, activities, songs, poems and dance. We used the Malawian curriculum and demonstrated practically wit 50 to 100 children.
As a follow up, Mary visited 5 schools and 20 classrooms in Oct/Nov. The teachers were delighted to demonstrate their newly acquired skills Phase 2 is planned for Summer 2012, so we are actively seeking volunteer teachers. Can you, or anyone you know help?
Partnership projects
The Irish Trinity of SJOG, W4Z and Ungweru, 3 NGOs are now working more closely together in many projects areas.
Patnership with SJOG, led by Br Aidan Clohessey was furthered when we got involved with their Self Help project. They work with 40 groups of women who have a savings system and provide loans to each other. To date we have provided new pumps and prepared others. Cluster Representatives from the groups regularly visit the farm to learn and take home seeds and seedlings.
Ungweru under the leadership of Fr John Ryan, professor of mathematics in Mzuzu University, (30 years in Malawi), engages with communities, identifying needs, facilitating community participation and providing training to communities on HIV/AIDS, Nutrition, Rights. W4Z install and maintain pumps and provide seeds, citrus seedlings, expertise and training in all aspects of conservation agriculture and food security.
We also work with Mzuzu University, Mzuzu Technical College and The Natural Resources College in Lilingwe,(the biggest such College in Malawi) who send us interns and students to the farm, to learn practical aspects of all elements of their Degree courses.
We partner Every Home for Christ, a Malawian CBO, Global Concern, an Australian NGO, Lifeline in Zambia, A Zambian/Danish NGO, Ripple Africa, a UK NGO, on pumps and the provision of clean, safe drinking water water
We partner CADECOM the Catholic Church relief agency on Citrus Seedling production and Numerous farmers co-ops on seed production and green manure seeds in particular.
We also partner Mzuzu City Assembly, Mzimba District Assembly and The Ministry of Agriculture with whom we have Memoranda of Understanding.
We are a member of CONGOMA, the association of NGO’s
We have developed a wide range of friends/advisors on the net, from all around the globe, like Professor James Brewbaker in Hawaii, William Hatcher from ECHO in the US, Professor Richard Carter, RWSN, UK, and others in India, Israel, Uganda, Germany, Norway, and Brazil, who keep up to date with what we’re doing and regularly send information and advice
SCHOOL SUPPORT
Our Lady's School, Terenure, Mini-Marathon in Dublin
We have an amazing array of schools and teachers helping us out, from Our Lady’s in Terenure (our longest association) to St Michael’s House Special Primary School in Ballymun, where the President of the INTO visited last week to thank them for their huge efforts. I’m sure the in between schools won’t mind being unmentioned, but we have thanked them personally. Having been in Education ourselves, we know the value of visiting schools and explaining what we do and how we do it, helping out in Religion, Science, Geography and SPHE classes, and delivering a message of huge inequity in our World, but also immense hope for a better way and a better future. A special mention here to Wooton Bassett School,UKfor their enormous efforts for an organisation they know only from the internet and for a people they will never see (Thanks Hester)
We thank everyone most sincerely for their trust in us to deliver 100% of their donations to the people who need it, without Black holes, Bureaucrats or Bean Counters.
DIT
Support from DIT is ongoing and extensive. W4Z is now a DIT Society enabling us to benefit from their many fundraising and information activities. For the past four years, we have been supported by Easter volunteer students from Business and Management, Engineering, Journalism, Early Childhood Ed and Manufacturing Engineering. 4 students from Computer Science did their placement with us in 2011. 5 students from Social Care, 2 from Chemistry and 3 from Broadcasting and Film Making will join us for placements on 2012
DIT Students Easter Volunteering in Malawi
We became fellows of the College last year. W4Z is one of the many very active societies. Mary is also on the advisory board of DIT Community Links project, Students Learning with Communities, with whom we work closely, providing opportunities for students and promoting the needs of the developing world
FUNDING
We have developed a three year Strategic plan (not a word I like, but to be in the NGO business, you must have the lingo). We now package all elements of what we did up to date and attach them to already established Women’s Self Help Savings groups (like 20 member credit unions of women already achieving what I consider to be the impossible with no input from us except advice)
Women's Self Help Group meeting in a village before they get down to business
Even after less than a year of success (with the guidance of SJOG services and support from Germany), these women have, regained their lives, grown in confidence, grabbed their voice, can verbalise what they need: things like clean drinking water, preschools and adult education and are hugely motivated, knowing that all their success is attributable to themselves: We will also work with them on community gardens, to demonstrate the possibilities of Conservation farming and alternative foods. The final piece of the jigsaw is, a new cash crop, for them, Paprika, to replace the failing tobacco business. Our partners ECO have the market and we are now growing our first crop for seeds as the seed in Malawi is of poor quality after years of re-use.
We call it our POP: a Permanently out of Poverty project and it certainly has all the ingredients needed to achieve this amazing turnaround in the lives of some of the world’s poorest, but amazingly spirited women.
It will operate it, in the Mzimba District, an area with 850,000 remote rural people, barely scratching out a subsistence existence. There we will work with the traditional authorities and hope to engage with up to 150,000 villagers. We plan 50 preschool buildings used also for Adult Education
The plan includes:
150,000 more people with access to clean, safe drinking water, Hygiene Education and sanitation
50 buildings with equipment and training for preschools, supporting communities to break the cycle of absenteeism and dire poverty, encouraging attendance by supplying one meal every day and facilitating transfer to primary school, 50 community gardens providing a hub for teaching and demonstration. These buildings, with full community support will double for Adult Education and often be used as clinics and even Churches.
Also on the plan is 500 Bee Colonies, 100,000 acacia trees, 20,000 improved variety, citrus seedlings (some from Florida,California and Israel) which we propagate on the farm and a variety of Mango, Avocado, Passion fruit and apples all from our farm.
We also enable girls to attend secondary school, by asking all of you to pay their fees which gives real hope for the future. Of course some will be married off, become pregnant or drop out, but, in the long term, the future of Malawi will be determined by the education of its girls. We are really passionate about this, where one term can cost as little as €20, (plus books, copies, pens, and sometimes a bike) in a Government Secondary school where they have qualified to attend
By centering our programme in motivated and successful women’s groups, putting all this in place IS possible and gives a village an opportunity to become self sufficient and maybe even realize a fraction of their potential.
Sorry to go on about the Women’s Self Help groups. The first level is with village (or groups of villages). The second level are clusters of groups, (where we work) and the top level is a planned Federation (a Political Voice, which will be heard, because these women are not for stopping)
Will it be easy? Of course not.
Will it take time? Yes
Will it be worth it? CERTAINLY
Can we do it?
We have the money in the bank to fund the first two years at the moment, we might live for three more years and our guys in Malawi are becoming more capable by the day, however:
A teddy bear's picnic at the new charity shop in Smithfield, Dublin
If you feel that there is inadequate attention to financial, socio cultural and institutional sustainabilitycan you advise and see how you might help. Besides this ambitious plan, we plan 1000 pumps for Zambia as well, bringing clean water to more than a quarter of a million villagers. In this we will have the support of Lifeline in Zambia, who are already on the job.
FUNDING IN THE NEAR TERM WILL BE DIFFICULT
We applied to Irish Aid for funding for this initiative, but they tell us they have better and more rewarding things to fund. So we are really taking up begging in a big way.
We will soon(!) open a Charity Shop in Smithfield, Dublin.
As usual any help would be great.
Considering that the cost of giving a villager clean, safe drinking water is just one Euro, small money makes a big difference.
CLEAN WATER CHANGES EVERYTHING!
A video by our friends at Charity: Water is worth a look
A number of years ago Mary read me a passage from a book called the Secret, one of those positive thinking style compositions that went something like this.
If you work with all your heart and soul for something positive, the Universe colludes to help you. Well feel is that the Universe certainly colluded and brought us into contact with the students in DIT. For those of you who haven’t heard of The Dublin Institute of Technology, it is the biggest Third Level educational establishment in the country with 23,000 students and an amazing array of disciplines.
We have had our fourth annual group of Easter Volunteers and like the others before them they were astounding. Each and every one of them made their own unique and lasting impact on people who have just the most tenuous link with existence imaginable. It just leaves me speechless each time they come, as to how they relate to the world’s poorest as if it is something in the Irish psyche that bonds us to those who are seeing the poverty of our ancestors. Or maybe those chosen to come are, in themselves, open to doing good, or maybe both.
What we ask of our volunteers is to inspire, educate and challenge, to be themselves and walk with the people. What we try to do is provide opportunities without handouts, and give back their dignity to some amazing, remote, rural women, most of whom have no formal education
I feel that this Easter 2011, one volunteer got the idea and wrote:
Going home, I know why I am here. I am not here to do the jobs that the Malawi people could do in half the time. I am not here to teach or to preach, to lead or to be followed. I am here to work with the people, to build friendships, a network of support and encouragement that can be continued long into the future. I know that while I may be back in Ireland soon, Wells for Zoe will continue to be here in Malawi, and will continue to be a community of people that will always be there, that will always offer help and support, that will always extend the hand of friendship and that will never give up.
The DIT students who come make a huge commitment, they raise their own funds, give up their time, pay their way and do it all with a smile. They do very early mornings, work all day and plan for the next day in the evenings. They analyse and advise and suggest ways of spending any donations they bring. We fully realize it’s a big challenge to go to such a poor country, not to go to the hotel and beach, but to work with the world’s poorest in their homes and schools and villages, playing with their children, eating their food and empowering then. It’s a big challenge, but no bother to these bravehearts
I am not a fan of the volunteering as it is commonly perceived and practiced by many nowadays. Come when you like, commit to nothing and take no responsibility, after all you’re not getting paid for it. My view is, that if you volunteer, it’s the real deal, you must be totally committed as if you were the most highly paid imaginable.
I also have a problem where people raise money from the general public to fund trips for volunteering purposes, where the output is often way short of the expectations of the donors.
I often wonder is my own quest the best way of spending my money, or should I send it to the village and stay at home myself. In reviewing the past six years in Malawi, I have now defined something of a philosophy:
I feel 40% of my effort was helping the villagers to remember what they knew themselves; 30% was encouraging them to believe in the skills and abilities they had rekindled; 25% was the pure spirit of Northern Malawian women; remote rural women, who are strong, intelligent, determined, bright, cheerful and powerful, against all the odds. Maybe I get 5% for showing up.
I imagine if the crisis in Sub Saharan Africa could be solved easily, it would already have been done alrady, after numerous studies, reports, strategies, plans and billions of dollars. But it’s not easy. It’s complex, confusing, frustrating annoying, amazing, challenging but never boring or bland.
The rural women we work with deserve canonization, considering what they achieve with nothing. Imagine what they could they do if they didn’t have to spend their lives having and feeding squads of kids, spending untold hours carrying water, and firewood, having to cook and clean and till and sow and harvest.
These thoughts come after twenty two visits to these communities. We have worked through a programme, seen joy, sorrow and frustration. I now realise it’s not about imposing what I know or can do, but finding what they can and are willing to do, and then inspiring them to move on. We have started on a path to understanding, trust and respect, and patience on my side. It takes time and effort and I’m pretty sure that little could be achieved by one whirlwind, volunteering visit by anyone. But that said, the way DIT groups slot in to an existing strategy, has an instantaneous and lasting impact
Wells for Zoe takes water pumps to Mzimba
from The Nation Newspaper, Malawi’s National Daily. Thursday, 26 May 2011 10:49 Albert Sharra – Correspondent
John Coyne demonstrates how to assemble the pump
December 26 2002 is a day that will never go out of the memories of 32-year-old Mary Msimuko of Msira Village, Traditional Authority Mtwalo in Mzimba. This is the day she buried her husband and two children who succumbed to cholera in two consecutive days, turning her into a childless widow.
According to Msimuko, the three got cholera after drinking contaminated water from a nearby river which is the main source of water for people in the village, who do not have access to tap water and boreholes.
“Doctors told me that the three died of dehydration caused by cholera. The water we were drinking was contaminated by running rainwater because the streams were not protected and when doctors came to taste the foods and water at our house, they found out that the water was contaminated,” she said.
But Msimuko is not the only one who has lost her family members to waterborne diseases. In 2005 and 2006, when the country received heavy rainfall, many people lost their lives to such diseases in the district.
Statistics kept at Mzuzu Central Hospital indicates that about 10 people in Mzimba lose life to waterborne diseases every rainy season due to lack of clean water.
Mzimba is the largest district in Malawi. With a population of over 850 000, only less than 200 boreholes have been constructed since 2000.
According to an environmental officer at Mzimba District Hospital Chimwemwe Jella, the fight against disease outbreaks and sanitation has been poor because most people rely on river or stream water.
But people in the district have every reason to smile with the coming of an Irish organisation called Wells of Zoe which is running a project aimed at supplying communities with clean drinking water in the district and the surrounding areas.
The organisation is installing shallow well pumps in the communities and already, over 4 000 pumps have been planted in Mzimba and part of Nkhata Bay and Karonga since 2006, benefiting over 100 000 people.
Speaking during a media tour, one of the project co-founders Mary Coyne said her organisation came up with the project after noting that most people in the district were drinking unsafe water.
“Water tops in any health issue and we were shocked when we first visited the country in 2005 to see women walking long distances carrying dirty water. As a charitable organisation, we decided to assist by providing water pumps. So, we decided to come up with a simple pump which can be repaired by anyone cheaply and we are happy today that the pump is efficient,” Coyne said.
The simple water pumps are made using two plastic pipes, a nail and a rubber disk cut from the inner tube of an old tyre, but it pumps water from as deep as 18 metres.
The Wells of Zoe is also training the communities on how to repair the pumps.
According to Coyne, the pumps are durable and each has a capacity to support over 500 people in a day.
To ensure that every community has access to these taps, the organisation opened a factory that manufactures the pumps in Mzuzu and community leaders can go and ask for one for their communities free of charge.
They are only asked to provide a place, sand and bricks for the construction.
One of the beneficiaries, Group Village Headman Kadambo, said the project is a relief to his community which had no access to clean water.
“We believe cholera and diarrhoea cases will be eliminated because we now have clean water,” he said.
Director of Water and Sanitation at Water for Life, a non-governmental organisation based in Lilongwe, Masautso Ng’ube, says the simple pump is a relief to Malawi because the boreholes have a shorter lifespan.
“Government has been drilling many boreholes countrywide, but very few are still working. I feel if we can embrace this simple pump, our communities will never go short of clean water,” he said, asking Wells of Zoe to open other factories in the Southern and Central regions.
