HELP US REVIEW & EDIT THIS PROJECT
Status: 
Time needed:
Two weeks or more
Step:
2
We are seeking a volunteer who is willing to review/edit the following project - can you help us?
PROJECT:
Muyuka is a small town in the South West Region of Cameroon, located about 31km from Buea,the Region capital, and has a total population of about 5000 people, most of whom are migrant workers from other towns and villages within the South West and North West Regions of Cameroon. Muyuka is mainly an agricultural town with mostly subsistence farming and with large installations from the Cameroon Development Corporations (CDC). The main crops are; maize, cassava, plantain, banana, water melon, and groundnuts. Most of the inhabitants, and migrant workers, are unskilled workers with the Cameroon Development Corporation (CDC).
Like many other communities in rural communities which are occupied by the CDC in Republic of Cameroon, these communities are poor with little or no infrastructure, poor housing conditions, no internet services, shortage of power supply, etc. Schools, health facilities, roads, and access to clean water.
One of the most deplorable conditions in CDC camps is the housing conditions. A house of about 8, i.e. mother, father and children are given just a two room house, one for parlor and a single room for both parents and children. These children, who spend the night with their parents, see their parents have sex and as it is with children, what they see, they try to practice. So when these children leave their parents for secondary school in Muyuka, they get engage in promiscuity behaviors and most of them end up been pregnant. These girls are abandoned by the boys who prefer to look for other girls which they consider preys. the girls are left at the mercy of God, since most of their parents will not want them back home with pregnancy. Most of them have to either abort or put to birth. Once these girls put to birth, a new tale of sorrow for these young mothers emerges as these young mothers can barely provide for themselves and their children.
As a possible solution to these problems, Organisation of African Youth(OAYouth) is planning this project so has to teach these young mothers business skills, by using a business incubation process. The businesses that the girls will be encouraged to start and learn how to operate will be businesses that are in line with demand in the community. There is a clear correlation between the success of a business and its relevance in the community, businesses that are not relevant in the community will not be supported and as such have a higher possibility of failure.
The OAYouth will work in partnership with some microfinance institutions so as to provide low interest loans to these women. The loans will attract an interest rate of 0.5%pm on any outstanding balance. The interest charged will be used to drive sustainability of the project, as the capital and interest can cover some of the operational costs and also generate funds for further loans. This will create a revolving pool of funds effect and it also teaches these girls important lessons around the value of money, credit and how to manage both.
The main vision of the OAYouth is to create an empowered society where the vulnerable and disadvantaged members realize their full potential and achieve their dreams in peace and harmony.
Attached files:
Project: Promoting Animal Husbandry for Youth
I would like to help with the animal husbandry project.
1. What animal products is there a market for?
2. What animals are of primary interest of the youth?
My first choice is goats. They do not eat human food so are cheaper to raise. Milk or meat? Muscovies are good poultry. Require no housing; roost in trees. Forge for food including flies. Lay 50 eggs per year. Good to eat. At times would require some feed -dry season?
Is land available for raising feed?
Is there a market for vegetables? Are the youth interested in growing? Try special crops such as spaghetti squash! Popping maize, baby maize, sweet maize, popping sorghum, etc.
How can I help?
Ken Hargesheimer
Thanks for your help Ken
We can do a cross section of the agriculture. There is the market for both vegetables and other food crops
Goats, are expensive to buy for a start, but there is a ready market for goat meat.
We will also gladly like to learn how to harvest goat milk as that might go along way to increase milk availability.
So investing in crops, yes, in goats, we will love to depending on available resources.
Muscovies will need marketing strategy especially on advantages as many people don't admire it.
I am waiting for your suggestions then
JUDE THADDEUS NJIKEM
Thanks for your help Ken
We can do a cross section of the agriculture. There is the market for both vegetables and other food crops
Goats, are expensive to buy for a start, but there is a ready market for goat meat.
We will also gladly like to learn how to harvest goat milk as that might go along way to increase milk availability.
So investing in crops, yes, in goats, we will love to depending on available resources.
Muscovies will need marketing strategy especially on advantages as many people don't admire it.
I am waiting for your suggestions then
JUDE THADDEUS NJIKEM
You are going to have to make a decision on what to do next. Takes almost no funds to grow and sell vegetables.
Organic, no-till gardening/farming [hand tools only] in permanent beds doubles or triples yields, reduces labor by 50% or more, reduces inputs/expenses to nearly 0 [need seed for new crops and green manure/cover crops], increases fertility, stops soil erosion [no rain water runoff], eliminates most weed, disease and insect problems and greatly increases profits. Use bucket drip irrigation [made by gardener/farmer] to produce during the dry season and in areas of low rainfall.
My guess is that some of the youth will want to go vegetables and others will want animals. They may not know enough about either to know what they want.
I suggest you start with vegetables as it takes little funds and there is a market. When you decide, let me know and I will help from there.
Ken
We will have to start with that which requires less funds and that will be vegetables
Regards
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JUDE THADDEUS NJIKEM
AS for crops the manure are needed and for goats , money is first needed
i would like to suggest that what the villagers feel easy can do that work first
even if you need other work i think hens are also a good isea.
it gives egg and side by side some manure too and it is of low cost too.
You do not have to know all there is to know about this before starting; just do it and learn as you go.
Email me your postal address and I will mail you a free farming dvd. I leave Friday, 13th, for South Africa and will mail before I leave if I get the address or after 2 June.
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-livestock farming,
using bucket drip irrigation, worldwide, in English & Español
Organic, No-till 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 This can feed the world regardless of how high the population goes.
The following will do that! 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.
Organic, no-till gardening/farming [hand tools only] in permanent beds doubles or triples yields, reduces labor by 50% or more, reduces inputs/expenses to nearly 0 [need seed for new crops and green manure/cover crops], increases fertility, stops soil erosion [no rain water runoff], eliminates most weed, disease and insect problems and greatly increases profits. Use bucket drip irrigation [made by gardener/farmer] to produce during the dry season and in areas of low rainfall.
These practices stopped the migration of farm families to the cities. [Honduras]. There is unlimited, documented proof. There are 100,000,000 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.
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. Maintain healthy soil. Healthy soil produces healthy crops with highest yields and prevents most disease, pest, weed and erosion problems.
2. Increase the soil’s organic matter every year.
3. Little or no external inputs [It is not necessary to buy anything, from anybody except seed.]
4. Leave crop residue on top of soil. No burning and never make biochar. You are burning up fertilizer. Do not plow it into the soil; leave on top of the soil.
5. Plant green manure/cover crops to increase the soil organic matter. No alley cropping; hedgerows.
6. Plant the new crop in the crop residue by opening up a row or a place for the seed.
7. Plant every field every year [no fallow land]
8. 0-tillage: no plowing, no digging, no cultivating. No hard physical labor required so children and the elderly can farm easily. Farmers farm ten acres alone using hand tools only [Honduras]
9. Tree crops: fruit, nuts, coffee [shade-grown], etc. Use perennial cover crops
10. Permanent paths [walking]
11. Permanent beds. They were used 2000 BC in Guatemala, Mexico and many other countries. 15-25% of the land is in paths and that saves 15-25% of the seed, water and labor but yields will be higher. [No alley cropping]
12. Hand tools: machete, weed cutter, seeding hoe. Local blacksmith should make them.
13. Soil always covered.
14. Intercropping with legumes
15. Compost: Use the organic matter for mulch. If there is an excess, pile it up and use later.
16. SRI - system of rice intensification. Double yields, reduces water requirements by 50% and reduces labor.
17. SRI for other crops: sugar cane, finger millet, cotton, wheat, mustard, maize, teff, pulses, vegetables.
18. Muscovies for insect control, meat, eggs.
19. Bucket drip irrigation should be used during the dry season and in areas of low rainfall: Imported bucket drip kits are US$20-$25 in most countries. 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 US$20 per month to the farmer [FAO study].
A. ecopreservationsociety.org/site/index.php/the-news/sustainability/237--whats-wrong-with-our-food-system-ted-talk-by-birke-baehr [Subtitled in many languages]
I volunteer my time to teach workshops, worldwide, in English or Spanish. All expenses must be paid. Scheduled: May, South Africa; June, Dallas; October, Indonesia.
Ken Hargesheimer minifarms@gmail.com
Dear Ken,
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
We have already started several gardens in Jinkfuin community and the people working on them have benefitted from the DVDS we received from Ken. We watched the DVDs and got so many lessons and there women and men already running gardens, good ones! Lia, Kimilili
I confirm Ken's advice. I've been using mulch and no-till since the late sixties. It works. It really works. I now manage a 5,000 ft² community garden in its fifth season. It started on hard clay with turf grass using cardboard and mulch. Leaves are added to the beds every fall and it has never been tilled. It's a beautiful, fruitful garden. I have friends who have sand and advised them to do the same. They've been very successful as well. It will work anywhere. Judith Hainaut
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]
One new thing someone might want to try is the growing and/or buying of maize and making tortillas for sell. A recipe is on the internet. Use lime with the maize and pat them out by hand and cook them, then sell them.
When I was in Kenya, I told some Americans that I always take tortillas and show people about them. They said I was too late. Someone had introduced them and two women made their living making and selling them.
I leave today for South Africa and checked on line about tortillas. A couple from Mexico immigrated there about 15 years ago and have a large tortillas and maize chips business.
Ken Hargesheimer
Hi,
I would like to help with the OAYouth project for young mothers. This is an awesome opportunity and I am most excited about the project.
1. Please inform me of what is needed for the aspiring entreprenuers.
2. I can assist with business plan writing
3. I am available for review and editing of any materials
I look forward to hearing from you soon, as I am eager to be of assistance for you project.
--
Lauren Stephenson, MBA
Attached to this post is the project.
All I ask is for you to review and see if there are any suggestions or loose ends.
The project too also needs financiers.
Regards
--
JUDE THADDEUS NJIKEM
Hi,
I went through the attached document. I found few things that is needed to be corrected in the document such as size of the letter are suppose to be 12 points in Times New Roman. It also looks better if you double space the document. There are other things I can help you with. If you would like to receive my corrections, please let me know.
Thank you and good luck with your project
--
Sunil Paudel
Hi Sunil
I will be glad to receive your corrections
Regards
--
JUDE THADDEUS NJIKEM
Not sure if you still need help with this, but I have completely proofread and edited this document. I hope it helps you with your cause.
Hi Jude
I reviewed the project plan. I have written a number of these myself over time. Please don't be put off by the amount of suggested amendments. I have tried not only to make your project more specific in detail, to secure support for it, but I have also improved grammer, to make it readable and understandable. Hope this helps. Do not be put off by the fact that the document is an .ODT file. You can change it to .DOC (Microsoft Word file)
Good luck with the project. Kind regards Denise
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If I am not sure of my next step, I ask or make it up as I go along : D
I would love to help edit this project! The idea seems really cool. I can help edit any texts you have that you want to send out to people, just to check for mistakes and make them more effective. Let me know if you are interested in that!
Just one thing...in paragraph three, line two, you use "I.e.". This is not the proper use of the term, because the example given here is not the only example of terrible conditions in the CDC camps. Instead, you should use "e.g.". This may seem like a little thing, but little things like this can make a huge difference!
Thank you for the good work you are doing!
Julia