Hi James,
I hope this finds you and your family well.
Thanks for the fast reply. Again I have to apologize for being so slow, just a lot going on here.
Let me give you a brief outline of what I THINK would be a good way to move forward here. Let me emphasize that we still have not decided where to begin work, whether in Baoma, Bo, or Kenema area. But these first steps would be helpful in determining whether or not Baoma would be suitable. Remember, some areas are NOT suitable for beekeeping, even if the people are committed.
I would say the first step is to find out if there are any traditional beekeepers in the area. If the area is OK, there should be several beekeepers within say 20 miles of Baoma. Determine how much honey they produce, and if they seem to be doing well with beekeeping or not. Many locations are poor for bees. First and foremost you need a good area where the bees can make a lot of honey. If beekeepers can make a good amount of honey with traditional methods, they usually can do extremely well with more modern methods. Do a careful evaluation of the success local beekeepers (within 20 miles) are having with honey production.
Secondly, if you find some local beekeepers, let the most successful one know that if Baoma is chosen for the project, we would like to hire him as an advisor. I need to determine what a typical wage per month is for non-NGO workers. We found with LIDEFO Uganda that the only way to have success is to pay workers the going wage. In Uganda it was about 30USD per month for fulltime but less for advisors. The cooperation of a local successful beekeeper is vital. He knows things about the local flora, and when the honey flows start and stop, as well as issues such as theft of hives/honey (a big problem in many places), how far to keep the apiaries from habitation, and much much more. We fully understand that there are many skills which locals possess that we do not. Usually such local beekeepers will want to be a part of the program. Our program is only to introduce and foster more efficient methods of production and sales.
I realize that this is work on your part. Usually we begin considering locations where we know there is already a traditional beekeeping operation in place, or a more modern one that needs help. But if you find that there are several local beekeepers around the area, that would be very encouraging.
Lastly, always remember that what we are trying to do is start a successful business that can stand by itself with no outside help. If the area is good, that can often be done within a year.

I hope this helps you. I should add that an ambitious goal would be to grow a beekeeping cooperative to such a large size that beekeepers across a large area Salone would be bringing their honey to the coop for sale. Typically they get a good price, and the coop sells retail for double the purchase price, thus producing a self-sustaining business.

Sincerely, Lloyd

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Lloyd Ziegler

Hi Garry,James,Mary and Dijana,
I got an opportunity to go through all your discussions concerning how you can set up a primary school for poor children in Baoma.

I would like to advise that the first step is to have a school plan to show how you want your school to look like. Its advisable to invite the local engineer to determine the size of classrooms and the building materials that should be used in the construction process. Its only from Engineers report that you will know the quantity of materials that will be needed to come up with a budget of it.

On the other hand i don't know the cost of building materials in Baoma but if it were here in Kenya building six classrooms it could have costed us less than $25,000. Through Nabuur we built a school of 13 rooms plus 6 toilets which costed us $30,000 for the staff,library,reception, Kitchen, H/M's office and 8 classrooms for the Matopeni poor children. We are now struggling to find funds worth $40,000 to build 10 classrooms,3laboratories Kitchen for a Secondary school for the same poor children to proceed with their education.Here in Kenya the size of a classroom recommended by the government is 25x30 fits.

I wish you all the best,
Stephen.

Thanks Stephen - I'm sure your experience in the process of fundraising and building the school in Matopeni, Kenya will be invaluable to James and his colleagues in Baoma. There is a saying in England that "an ounce of practice is worth a ton of theory".

The Schools for Salone website suggests that building and supporting a typical school in SL costs around $50,000. There are some fantastic pictures of them building really good schools: http://schoolsforsalone.org/Pages/ProjectSchools-AP.html and click the interactive school map.
Cheers
Garry

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Garry Jenkins

Hi James
There's a great example on Nabuur of a school in Uganda - Keframa College, which has been built from scratch just recently. Its in home>Villages>Barr. The school project has a website:

http://www.keframacollege.org/index.html

which they used to good effect to get donors involved. Have a look. Pehaps other Nabuur people could help you set up a similar website for your project.

All the best
Garry
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Garry Jenkins

Dear Stephen,
stephen kindly link me with the funders that helped you to build your school in Kenya so that I can contact them for help using your methods of contact.

Kindly reply me as soon as you can please.

Regards
James Ansumana

Dear Garry
I am really confused about this work I have used all my know-how and techniques to make this project work on nabuur but it is not working.

The only way I feel we can move forward is by using nabuur to directly/formally contact school for salone and bring them on board nabuur (Baoma School project) for help may be that will be the only way out.

Kindly reply me as soon as you can please.

Regards
James Ansumana

James
Sorry you are rather despairing. Nabuur is a netwrk of volunteers and villages. I'm sure there are other volunteers and people on it who can help you, and certainly the examples of suceesful village school projects is useful but they are hard to find and to contact with the website set up as it is.

I would suggest you get back in contact with Schools for Salone, and try and get a yes or no out of them. If they say no, then you have to look elsewhere, but if they say maybe, try and push them to find out what it is that makes their projects stack up in their eyes, and what you proposal has to cover to make it attractive to them. They have to keep their donors happy, so they might have particular requirements. I know they do a lot of fundraising from schools in America, so that may be the "target audience" for your proposal. People give money, but for their own reasons. In my case, I would need to see that the proposal was community based with wide support, was a registered organisation with a number of trustees, and would use the money to do what they say they are going to do.

I am just about to go on holiday, so won't be around for a week. Perhaps you could contact Mary and see if she has any ideas.

Take care
Garry

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Garry Jenkins