see case on rabbit meat production
http://www.globetree.org/africa/rabbit-net/concept.htm

----------
regards
Jacky Foo
Program Officer (Environment and Sustainable Development)
www.globetree.org

----------
Sincerely,

Meran E. Chang
Graduate Student, May 2009
Master of Nonprofit Organizations
Weatherhead School of Management
Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences
Case Western Reserve University
(804) 503-9179
meran.e.chang@gmail.com

"Find some

Hi Everyone,
I really want to start a grapes farm which will help the community around me. If anyone has the know how of how to farm grapes,please help me.

There is a vocational centre in Jinja where girls make necklaces. Councillor Anna Grace Aguti who is also the Chair of the Social Services Committee, explained that a major problem is finding potential buyers of their products.

Globetree has been helping the NGO "Children's Garden" by buying necklaces. In Sweden, many schools organise school bazaars, often twice a year. School children collect anything they can sell and parents contribute also by making food for sale. All income goes into their school or class funds which are then used for their school/class activities, e.g. subsidise travel costs. So whenever someone visits Nairobi, Globetree buys necklaces for school children to sell them during bazaar days.

The problem with this informal and irregular purchase system is that it is done only when someone visits Nairobi. Globetree holds an annual meeting at the United Nations Grounds where children from Sweden meet others from East Africa. So many of the exchanges take place during this time as many Swedish children attend this gathering. (see pic at http://tinyurl.com/2ab89j)

Limited funding for making larger volumes of products or buying the products have restricted both these producers and buyers. The advance by a micro-loan will enable the NGO to buy materials or school children to make payment before they can sell them at school bazaars.

regards
jacky foo
Children's Village and Vocational Centre (CVVC), Kenya
http://www.changemakers.net/en-us/node/3940

Thanks Greg Schnippel for the help and your message which I spotted only today.

I am back from my travels and ready to resume discussions on the Children's Village and Vocational Centre.

In Malaysia I had an interesting discussion about a rehabilitation centre for drug abusers. One of the centre's activities is commercial production of herbs. The centre offers their services to NGOs who are interested to buy tree plantlets and the Centre grows the trees that NGOs like to have. I thought this is a great idea as it benefits both sides.

CVVC partners with an NGO that has a small plant nursery but it does not generate sufficient income to be sustainable. I will be running a training course (funded by SIDA/Forum Syd) on "how to start and manage a plant nursery".

If you have any more ideas to enhance activities and sustainability of a plant nursery, please let me know. THANKS.

regards
jacky foo
Children's Village and Vocational Centre (CVVC), Kenya
http://www.changemakers.net/en-us/node/3940

Botnaru asked:
>it’s not clear what “environmental barriers” do you mean?

Your question refers to my response to the entry question:
>What makes your initiative uniquely positioned to create change in your community?

I think I understand reason for your question since you are an environmental journalist.

This competition deals with "Main Barriers to Engagement & Fulfilling Potential" of vulnerable youths and my response was :
>......With a background of accumulated effects of cultural and environmental barriers
>and a lack of opportunities, these youths will continue to face public rejections
>and isolations and will easily return to doing petty thefts for survival even if they
>have unskilled labourer's jobs.

"environmental barriers" refers to the environment or surroundings that youths are in.

A "cultural barrier" may be that the ex-offender (ex-convict) will be void of all opportunties for work at her/his community. S/he is refered to always as an ex-offender. There are many social taboos on them.

The environment where ex-offenders live in may also be not ideal for self-improvement. Many ex-offenders may return to broken homes and they turn to the streets for "peace". Many may not have a home to return to. The streets is their home. These are some of the "environmental barriers" that youths will continue to face and causing "public rejections" and "isolations".

"Environmental barriers" could be
(a) ecological i.e. related to the air, water, minerals, organisms, e.g. an environment of polluted sea water is a barrier for outdoor swimming and recreation.
(b) their "milieu" (or their living environment) i.e. the aggregate or totality of a person's surroundings, conditions, or influences;

I was therefore refering to the latter - the barriers of a person's surroundings.

Do you have any suggestion for replacing the phase I used "environmental barriers" ? THANKS.

regards
jacky foo
Children's Village and Vocational Centre (CVVC), Kenya
http://www.changemakers.net/en-us/node/3940
Travel: 17-28 Jan (maybe offline over extended periods of time)

In the "World Youth Report 2007: young people's transition to adulthood: progress and challenges", (http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unyin/wyr07.htm), Eldis provided a review of the report at http://www.eldis.org/go/topics/resource-guides/children-and-young-people&id=34954&type=Document
++++
The core areas identified by this report as requiring attention — education, employment,
poverty reduction, health, and promoting the rights of young women — apply to all world regions
to varying degrees.

The report presents a set of recommendations for each of these core areas, including:
* improve technical, secondary and higher education, maximizing the use of new technologies
* increase microfinance and entrepreneurship programmes to benefit young people
* empower young people as key contributors in poverty reduction strategies
* ensure the provision of youth-friendly basic health services, including sexual and reproductive health care
* eliminate discrimination of girls and young women and ensure equal participation at all levels of society.
++++

To provide an enabling environment for youth development and participation, CVVC has considered various aspects of the above 5 core areas and in particular
* technical & vocational training and use of appropriate technologies
*income generation, microfinance, and entrepreneurship
* group therapy in after care services for youth probationers
* mental health care (via PACS/MoHA)
* gender equality

I will be happy to provide more details.

regards
jacky foo
Children's Village and Vocational Centre (CVVC), Kenya
http://www.changemakers.net/en-us/node/3940

Kenyan youths have a much greater challenge than a youth living in a developed country where there is supportive public service systems to help them.

In my last visit to Nairobi (Oct'2007), I found out that one of the things unemployed university graduates do is to volunteer and work at NGOs in exchange for food and accomodation. I talked to one who teaches at an informal primary school and is paid 5000 KES (75 US$) per month (same as an unskilled labourer, a skilled gardener can make twice the amount at the residence of an expariate home in Nairobi).

Therefore youth probationers (with only primary school education and no skills) in Kenya will certainly have a much much more difficult time finding a job.

If you want to "save" these youths and to give them a second change, I believe "self-employment through small businesses" will be a cost-effective and productive approach.

So at the CVVC, trainees will have an opportunity to generate income. I will try to find a way so that their income can be matched with micro-loans. If a trainee can generate and save 100 US$ in 1 year, a start-up amount of 200 US$. While these trainees are doing technical or workshop training, some of the products generated can be sold. Also CVVC has land for food production and this is another way for income generation and making free time productive.

CVVC plan to have a business center (2010 ?) and trainees can then manage their own stores/shops. There are so many trhings one can do.

These are not new ideas. People have tried them before but why have many failed. I think it is even more important to talk about failures so that we can learn them.

I welcome case studies for discussion.

P.S: At the moment, the policy for child probationers who are under 16 is that they are not allowed to generate income. EVenthough well intended, children's home fear to be charged for "child labour".
+++++

In the questions asked for the "Young Men at Risk: Transforming the Power of a Generation" competition, this one was not asked.

I wrote (Dec 27) in the context of what Preventative Youth programs may cost:
>With 5000 US$, I can set up a medium-size rabbit production unit (producing 5-10
>rabbits per week for sale) and also use rabbit droppings with feed residues
>in pits for growing papaya trees and shade for the rabbits. It will be an fully
>integrated biosystem and the only input will be grass.

I would go for setting up one micro-business on rabbit meat production. This will also strengthen a forthcoming training course in 2008 on rabbit care and skin use.
Funds will be used for a group of trainees to start a rabbit operation, building rabbit houses, stocking with rabbits and management costs.

Additional (advanced) training exercises and activities for participants will be:
(i) to prepare a business plan for an operation that can generate 5-10 rabbits per week
(ii) to design their own rabbit houses and estimate construction costs
(iii) to investigate on how to lower costs of rabbit house construction
(iv) to develop uses for and products from preserved skins

There is an existing market for meat of any kind in Nairobi. Rabbit is one of them.
Skins can be used to make small souvenir drums, lucky charms attached to key chains, etc.
Other byproducts (wastes) can be used as a resource and integrated into the rabbit business plan or used by other CVVC activities.

regards
jacky foo
Children's Village and Vocational Centre (CVVC), Kenya
http://www.changemakers.net/en-us/node/3940

on December 27, 2007 - 06:40
John Govea wrote:
>.....Young men of color constitute more than 40 percent of American males under the age of 25,
>and at least half of them live in poverty. ........(cut)....young men of color are less likely to reach
>their full potential and contribute to society. They suffer disproportionately from the societal ills
>of gangs, addiction, crime, violence, accidental deaths, and increasingly, mental health problems.
>......this phenomenon is not unique to the United States, but is prevalent in many societies
>across the globe. In a recent Oprah Winfrey show in Sweden, 50,000 US$ was the price for keeping a youth in prison in the USA. (unable to locate reference for this). Preventative Youth programs would cost 10,000 US$ per youth only. >>>

We are experiencing the same problem in Toronto Canada with many young men of colour been kicked out of school and or simply giving up and joining gangs. They are killing each other at alarming rate and its a heart breaker for the Black community not just in Toronto, but in all the major urban centres across Canada. The last figure I saw a few years ago it was some thing in range of $80,000 per annum in terms of cost to keep a juvenile and or youth incacerated in Canada, the number could be lower as they are now building super jails to incacerate the worse offenders. Either way we have to find ways to give the youths and young women "baby mothers" who associate and partner with them some viable options to a life of crime. Its litterally a dead end. Toronto was never this bad in terms of youth violence but due to the polices of a right wing provincial government that was elected in the early 90's who slashed welfare and social services, we have a generation of kids who grew up on "Kraft Dinner" in the projects and they are now coming of age and we are now reaping the bloody harvest.

JF wrote:
>In a recent Oprah Winfrey show in Sweden, 50,000 US$ was the price for keeping a
>youth in prison in the USA. (unable to locate reference for this). Preventative Youth
>programs would cost 10,000 US$ per youth only.

I found info:
Elizabeth Brown said her organization (Turtle Nest Village, West Palm Beach)
".......can put a teen through its program for about $20,000 a year - a far cry from the estimated $47,500 a year required to incarcerate someone or the hundreds of thousands of tax dollars spent per individual over a lifetime of homelessness".

"Foster kids are abandoned twice: first by their parents, and then again, by the system created to raise them. As of their 18th birthday, they’re alone." http://www.turtlenv.org/index.html.

Elizabeth Brown further argues (http://www.turtlenv.org/statistics.html)
"....the average age a young American becomes self-sufficient is 26. Why, then, would we have the unrealistic expectation that our country’s most vulnerable youth would be ready to live independently at 18?
++++

The situation is much much worse with child probationers. At 17, they are sent to adult prisons (even when convicted for petty thefts). The Kenyan Ministry of Home Affairs intends to launch their half-way house program.

It is my hope that CVVC will be linked to MoHA's first half-way house in Lower Kabete. I already check out several disused buildings (formerly dormitories that were built some 50 years ago) that could be used as half-way houses. The basic structures are still very good and all they need are doors and windows frames (stolen for re-use) and some basic sleeping, toilet and cooking facilities. (see http://www.changemakers.net/files/Image1a-s.jpg and http://www.changemakers.net/files/IMG_9550-s.jpg).

The process of getting things done can be slow with govt agencies in Kenya. As they say, the Brits introduced the red tape system to Kenya during their colonial days but the Kenyans perfected it after its independence.

The concept of children's village and the need for vocational training are not new to most countries in the world. Trade skills are handled down to family members for centuries. CVVC as a centre will welcome all youths esp. the vulnerable ones. CVVC is innovative because it provides long-term and hands-on internship in job skills.

It will give youth a "choice" for change.

Rather than a lack of choice, youth probationers can gain skills to develop their own sustainable livelihoods.

E.g. Kabete Rehabilitation School (a partner and at the CVVC location too) has 12 dairy cows. Fresh milk sells for 20 KES per liter. If a daily income is targeted at 300 KES (or 9000 KES per month which is a good income) then an operation with at least 3-4 cows is needed. If milk production is improved with good management, income can double. To be sustainable, fodder grass is needed when zero grazing method is used. In many places in Lower Kabete, spaces between the roads and private property are now rented out for a very small fee for urban agriculture. I have seen napier grass grown on such places.

The knowledge gained through training on dairy management by youth probationers can be spread to their home villages. Such CVVC activities have the ability to affect not just one village but many more villages. Simple management methods and how-tos can to be replicated.

see also http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-11/bc-nth110707.php
Milk consumed: 145 litres per Kenyan per year

regards
jacky foo
Children's Village and Vocational Centre (CVVC), Kenya
http://www.changemakers.net/en-us/node/3940

CVVC training course (2008) will have hands-on exercises and on :
>(iv) how to treat washwater and use it for irrigation of crops

It will use the basic principles of the 'dry creekbed' technique (see IOBB e-seminar (2004) materials and discussion messages at http://www.iobborg.net/drupal/forum/64) with a simplify and appropriate changes (original diagram at http://www.changemakers.net/files/fig-3.jpg by P. Totterdell). The changes will be that the plastic-lined and underground canal will be narrower so that water will flow upwards and then overflow from both sides into the surrounding soil where vegetables can be grown on raised beds and all round the year.

The materials needed are locally available in Nairobi (plastic sheet @85 KES/m and PVC pipes).

Since irrigation water is always under the soil surface, leafy vegetables will have minimal risks of contamination from the wash water (root crops will not be grown). The system will have gravel/stones which increases the surface area for microbial growth and enhances bio-treatment and breakdown of organic matter in the water. Clogging may happen after a few years of use (due to sludge accumulation) but it can be easily flushed out off the underground pipe at the other end.

At the site, washwater currently flows into an open drain (http://www.changemakers.net/files/IMG_7674s.jpg). This drain water (with human urine as a bio-fertiliser) will be used in the irrigation system.

++++++

By the way, my recent visit to the surroundings in Islamabad reveal an interesting work by a local NGO for the training, providing accomodation with food and at the same time involve them in the growing grape trees in a manner that a drug addicted youths (16 to 24 years of age) from up country or left orfan in devastating earth quake two years back, are provided accomodation in a camp style fashion with referred land of vine yards where more than 10,000 plants have been grown which are subsequently maintained till sale of grapes to the market in Punjab province of Pakistan. This grape quality is competing well with grapes that use to come previously from Quetta/Chamman cities of Balochistan province bordering Afghanistan. In a way this setup provides training as the youth work on the vine yards and this way cover more than 70% of the expenses and rest comes from donation etc. I am told that an entrant to this farming of grapes spends about 18 months and in this time the drug addicted youth becomes use to normal life and also becomes acceptable to his community back home. He is then free to start his own work. There are about over 60 youths living there.

best regards,
Liaqat Hayat