Hi Sadat

Firstly, can I ask what you preferred to be called? You said in your message that you don't mind but I would really like to know what YOU prefer :-)

Re the project, you are incredibly well organised, and I am amazed at how much work you have already done. That's so great because it makes your goals even closer.

However, although I understand the overall end goal, I am unsure of how you want to get there, ie the small goals (the small steps) and in what order you want those small steps taken eg what your priorities are of the 5 things people need (ie the 5 unmet needs). Is this something that maybe we could work on? If that is OK with you, could I ask you for the first thing: in which order of priority do you want to achieve the 5 unmet needs?

Also, you have very detailed and long explanations of the project. These are quite hard to read. Could I suggest that these be put into documents and added as attached files, as you have done with the funding proposal, and make your posts and explanations of tasks short and very much to the point.

That's just some of my ideas so far, after just a brief look at your project, which I can see from your photos and explanation, is a very VERY important project. I would like to help you achieve it.

Please let me know if you do or do not agree with my ideas! :-)

Kind regards
Lynley

Hi Lynley Mackay,

Very many thanks first for your acceptance to join Dandora Village. This is very encouraging and we look forward to a fruitful and prosperous future. Our cooperation and partnership will definitely promote our project and accelerate success as this is urgent and crucial.

I would prefer to be called Sadat, that is my surname and Nahashon is my first name.
Our main agenda is to fundraise for funds to construct and equip Dandora Community Resource Centre for Research and Development. This will enable us to;
-Documentation of the healthcare situation (as outlined by traditional health providers and midwives) of the rural areas countrywide and evaluation of main medical problems to become aware of local problems and make a contribution to improve the living situation of indigenous people;

-Ethno ecological and ethno botanical documentation of plants, bio resources, including endangered tropical flora to contribute to the preservation and sustainable use of bio-diversity;

-Quantitative field data evaluation to assess naturally important plants and to select those for further biological and phytochemical investigations and possibility of cultivation regionally;

-Publication and dissemination of collected information and obtained results of the study, so that the population has access to it;

-Sensitization of persons and institutes to recognize intellectual property rights and to become aware of the responsibility by using such information in research – to ensure appropriate returns of benefit to indigenous people.

-To extend corporations and exchange of experts, skills, training in these and related fields;

-To initiate comprehensive programmes for the identification, evaluation, preparation, cultivation and conservation of medicinal and food plants used in traditional medicine;

All these call for; Project proposals, Strategic papers, e.t.c

About reorganization of our page, we would like to request your assistance. This is because we don’t have at the moment our own facilities and I know this requires quite a reliable internet service. Please if you can help us manage information on our page if possible that will be better.
I do agree with your ideas they are resourceful and will give us a roadmap to success.
Thanking you again for your concern and determination.
My Regards,

Sadat

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dandoracommunity

Hi Sadat

I will help you re-organise the tasks, but I will need a couple of weeks at least. Are you OK with that?

So is the natural therapies centre (explained in your above post) the main priority of the project?

Hi Lynley,
Thank you very much for your correspondence. No problem about how long you will take to re-organize our page. Natural Therapies Centre is our main priority project. I hereby want to thank you most heartfully for the support you have rendered to our request so far.
We are hoping for the best.
Thanking you again.
Yours Sincerely,
Sadat

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dandoracommunity

I was asked to help with the farming which I am glad to do. The photos are great in that you already have permanent beds. Build up the soil using green manure/cover crops such as mucuna, velvet beans, sudan, etc. I have taught in Kenya. During the dry season use bucket drip irrigation if the farmer is willing to carry 5 gallons of water per day per 100 feet row of vegetables or herbs or whatever. I am assuming you do not have running water. If you do, connect to DIY driplines.

Be glad to answer question. Send a postal address and I will mail an ag dvd. I am interested in the info being available to the village farmers; not on someone's office shelf.

Ken

Drip photo.doc

Hi Ken,
Thank you very much for your encouraging comments. Yes we do not have running water
But the village farmers are willing to carry water every morning and evening
From a nearby stream or river and others dig a well in their compounds.
In the last three decades the number of food insecure people in Kenya has more doubled,
•Over the same period. GDP per capita growth averaged negative 1%
•Malnutrition in Kenya’s children rose by 70% of the period 1970 -2001
•Per capita income of about $ 312 per year was lower in 2002 than $350 in 1975
•Rural women produce up to 80% of the food but access only 10% of the credit, receive less than 5% of the extension service and own only a fraction of the land.
•About 1 tone of soil nutrients are lost annually from Kenya’s soil because of cultivating the same piece of land year in - year out.
•Progress towards the Millennium Development Goals of the United Nations has stalled in Kenya. 75% of the of the poor live in rural areas, sustaining their existence by farming small plots or breeding cattle, sheep, goats, chicken, donkeys or camels for income. Healthcare and agriculture are central to improving the lives of the poor.
THIN promotes traditional knowledge and practices as a vehicle of change in the war against ill-health. This unique initiative aims to integrate education, training and research in various disciplines: primary care, food, nutrition, quality environment, complementary therapies among others. THIN feels the need to act not only in healthcare issues but also to resolve the problems of abject poverty through education, community development technology & employment creation, promoting the bonds of solidarity and giving science its meaning. THIN’s plans for the future are realistic and address real problems of the real macro-environment. These plans have been developed in consultation with the potential beneficiaries (the communities). Our activities depend on means that are essential, accessible and affordable.
We believe that your agricultural DVD will help improve agricultural techniques and increase yields by farmers. We also invite you to offer training and expertise in agriculture. Your drip photo document is wonderful.
Can we work on a project proposal to train farmers and purchase farm inputs?

Sadat.

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dandoracommunity

I do not keep a record of who I mail DVDs to. If you have given me your postal address, they are mailed. If not, I need it to mail them to you.

Hi Ken,
Thank you. I had sent you our address but to be sure here it is;
Traditional Healthcare Integration Network (THIN)
P .o. Box 46665-00100 GPO Nairobi Kenya.
Warmest regards,
Sadat.
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dandoracommunity

I can help in the Architectural design of the centre, just mail me the plot area and shape. my email is japiii1@yahoo.com

Sadat,

I just now discovered your post. I am mailing you the dvds again.

Ken

GARDENS/MINI-FARMS NETWORK
Wrokshops: USA - TX, MS, FL, CA, AR, NM; Mexico, Rep. Dominicana, Côté d’Ivoire,
Nigeria, Nicaragua, Honduras, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Haiti, England, India, Uzbekistan
minifarms@gmail.com
Workshops in organic, no-till, permanent bed gardening, mini-farming and mini-ranching,
using bucket drip irrigation, worldwide, in English & Español

Proven Practices for Gardening & Farming

The solution to world hunger is teaching the farmers to farm profitably and sell locally. There is a grassroots movement, around the world, for families and groups to produce their own food due to cost, flavor and chemical contamination. "There's this belief that in order to stop poverty, we have to find ways to get people to stop being farmers. What we need to do is find ways to stop them from being poor farmers." Amy Smith, MIT

These are based on the internet, US & international agriculture magazines, experiences teaching agriculture in many countries, research data and farmer experiences in those countries and a demonstration garden. They are ecologically sustainable, environmentally responsible, socially just and economically viable. There is unlimited, documented proof. There are 90,000,000 no-till hectares worldwide.

Fukaoka Farm, Japan, has been no-till [rice, small grains, vegetables] for 70 years. At the time of my visits, an Indian farmer has been no-till [vegetables] for 5 years, a Malawi farmer has been no-till [vegetables] on permanent beds for 25 years and a Honduras farmer has been no-till [vegetables & fruit] on permanent beds on the contour (73° slope] for 8 years. Ruth Stout [USA] had a no-till garden for 30 years and 7,000 people visited her garden. Free DVD available.

No technique yet devised by man has been anywhere near as effective at halting soil erosion and making food production truly sustainable as 0-tillage (Baker)

1. Restore the soil to its natural health. Contamination: inorganic pesticides, insecticides & fertilizers
2. Maintain the healthy soil. Healthy soil produces healthy crops with highest yields and prevents most disease, pest, weed and erosion problems.
3. Increase the soil’s organic matter every year.
4. Little or no external inputs [It is not necessary to buy anything, from anybody.]
5. Leave crop residue on top of soil. No burning. You are burning up fertilizer. Do not plow it into the soil.
6. Plant green manure/cover crops to increase the soil organic matter. Seeds are available in every country.
7. Plant the new crop in the crop residue by opening up a row or a place for the seed.
8. Plant every field every year [no fallow land]
9. 0-tillage: no plowing, no digging, no cultivating. No hard physical labor required so children and the elderly can farm easily. After two or three years the yields can double while reducing the labor by half compared to traditional farming. Farmers farm ten acres alone using hand tools only [Honduras]
10. Tree crops: fruit, nuts, coffee [shade-grown], etc. Use perennial cover crops
11. Permanent paths [walking]
12. Permanent beds. They were used 2000 BC in Guatemala, Mexico and many other coun-tries. 15-25% of the land is in paths and that saves 15-25% of the seed, water and labor but yields will be higher.
13. Hand tools: machete, weed cutter, seeding hoe. Local blacksmith should make them.
14. Soil always covered. Never leave the soil bare.
15. No compost making. Use the organic matter for mulch. If there is an excess, pile it up and use later.
16. Vermiculture: Not necessary; too much labor. Do it in the soil in the fields.
17. SRI - system of rice intensification. Double yields, reduces water requirements by 50% and reduces labor.
18. SRI for other crops: sugar cane, finger millet, cotton, wheat, mustard.
19. Bucket drip irrigation should be used during the dry season and in areas of low rainfall: Imported bucket drip kits are US$15. A bucket drip line can be made locally from poly tubing [US$3, Nicaragua]. One will irrigate a row of crops 33 meters long using only 20 liters of water per day. A dripline can be moved to irrigate several rows per day. Water can be from a stream, pond or well. A drip kit returns $20 per month to the farmer [FAO study].

Ken Hargesheimer minifarms@gmail.com
When Soil is Plowed
Dr. Elaine Ingham, describes an undisturbed grassland—where a wide diversity of plants grow, their roots mingling with a wide diversity of soil organisms—and how it changes when it is plowed. [The same is true of a jungle, rainforest, forest, etc]
A typical teaspoon of native grassland soil contains between 600 million and 800 million individual bacteria that are members of perhaps 10,000 species. Several miles of fungi are in that teaspoon of soil, as well as 10,000 individual protozoa. There are 20 to 30 beneficial nematodes from as many as 100 species. Root-feeding nematodes are quite scarce in truly healthy soils. They are present, but in numbers so low that it is rare to find them.
After only one plowing, a few species of bacteria and fungi disappear because the food they need is no longer put back in the system. But for the most part, all the suppressive organisms, all the nutrient cyclers, all the decomposers, all the soil organisms that rebuild good soil structure are still present and trying to do their jobs.
But tillage continues to deplete soil organic matter and kill fungi. The larger predators are crushed, their homes destroyed. The bacteria go through a bloom and blow off huge amounts of that savings-account organic matter. With continued tillage, the "policemen" (organisms) that compete with and inhibit disease are lost. The "architects" that build soil aggregates are lost. So are the "engineers"—the larger organisms that design and form the larger pores in soil. The predators that keep bacteria, fungi, and root-feeding organisms in check are lost. Disease suppression declines, soil structure erodes, and water infiltration decreases because mineral crusts form. Dr. Elaine Ingham, BioCycle, December 1998. (From ATTRA News, July 06)

Tue, Dec 30, 2008

Dear Ken,

Thank you for all the DVD’s you sent me. Thank you for all the info. I am applying it in my own vegetable patch. It is working. Got half a pocket of potatoes off a square metre. So would imagine about 10 pounds per square yard. This off previously dead low, carbon soil. Sure next crop will be better. Got yams coming up on same spot already. Want to plant herbs and spices. I will send photos.

Your advise is so simple. People do not believe me when I tell them. I am so excited about growing things now. This coming from a commercial plum farmer. May you be blessed this holy season a thousand times more than you blessed me with you help.Jeremy Karsen, middagkrans@mwebbiz.co.za

Project room: Kyomya, Uganda
We have been working on improving farming techniques for almost a year. Unfortunately, the farmers are planting small plots of land that only feed their family. There is no other choice but to try new techniques to improve the output of their plot. Ken Hargesheimer suggested the "no till" farming techniques as well as the "drip system". Both have proven effective at increasing production by at least 5 fold. The time is now for Kyomya to become a model agricultural village. [nabuur.com]

Drip photo.doc

Mucuna Mulch Systems.doc