Thanks to mutual efforts of Nabuur neighbours, Walungu on site volunteers and the community, learning farm has been launched this summer in the village. Based on the plans that Scott has made, the community built two goat sheds using local material and is working on building more, so that the goats could be kept at families. After some trouble with locating dairy goat seller around South Kivu, we bought a couple of crossbred Alpine from Burundi and got one female for free from the seller. One of the goats is already pregnant.

One of the most important aspects of learning farm is that the people learn by doing as much as possible to take good care of goats. The community is trained by our volunteers Roger and veterinary Chokola, who was introduced by Trinto Mugangu, our partner from FONDAMU in DRC. They based their training on goat keeping manuals we found, especially Tanja’s hard copy manual, on material from Guillaume’s training at FAO and on the illustrations that Scott made with Esther’s help.

If dairy goats prove as a good idea, we will continue with a plan to expand the project. Thanks to Tanja and Wolrdschool students, we have SWOT analysis and another group of students is expected to take over the task of writing a plan. The students have also made a breeding plan.

Another activity in the village is farming and learning new techniques. The community has grown some tomato during dry season using irrigation from a nearby river. They also use raised bed and add organic matter to improve the soil. Moreover, a new planting season is here and the community is getting ready to plant the seed they got from Ken this summer.

Together with other on site volunteers, Guillaume registered NGO GAILD, (Groupement d’appui aux initiatives Locales de Développement). Beside fruitful partnership with FONDAMU and Minifarms, GAILD will become a member of FOPAC DRC, a partner of AGRITERRA from the Netherlands.

Finally, we have a doctor od medicine who is preparing a two days training about GHP and water and sanitation in October.

A big thanks to everyone for your hard work and committment to make a difference for Walungu. Keep up the great work you are doing!