CHICKEN PROJECT

We were able to start a chicken project with the Tierra Linda Women's Group in August 2006.

After almost a year of waiting to have this project come to fruition, it was a very happy group of women who met to discuss the start of the Chicken Project for their village

We arranged to have 20 women receive the first chickens. We received half the amount proposed for this project and so instead of each woman receiving 10 chickens, they will receive 5 chickens each. Hopefully, if the first half of this project is successful funding will come for the second half.

The Women’s Group is very appreciative of this help. We are running this project in the same way that we did the very successful Chicken Project in San Jorge la Laguna.
We choose by lottery, the first group of 20 women to receive their chickens. They have one week to build their chicken cages. We come back the following week and deliver their chickens, a small amount of food for them and inspect the cages. The cages must have water, shade and shelter. If the cages are not built then the women do not receive their chickens. We then hold a lottery for the next group and repeat the whole process.

We do not deliver the chickens all at once to the whole group for two reasons.

1. That 154 women all having 5 or 10 chickens coming of age to be sold at the market at the same time would flood the market of Solola and cause problems for everyone.
If the delivery is staggered then so is the sale of the chickens.

2. The second reason is that we need the social pressure of the group to reinforce that people are taking care of their chickens. If the first groups do not care for their chickens and the chickens die, then we stop the project. So there is a lot of pressure on the first groups to take good care of their chickens and this follows right down through the whole group.