Innovations in Kaberamaido

By Sara:

Anthony and I got to sit in on the World Renew East Africa team meeting back in September as representatives of Resonate.  It was exciting that the meeting took place in Soroti for the first time ever!  One of the days was a field visit to see some of the work being done in this region, so I got to go to Kaberamaido and see some of the people I worked with in 2014 and 2015.  The organization there used to be called KMDP, but it is now called West Teso SDS.  I love the way they do their work and I always admire the changes in the communities who work with them.

We visited one farmer who has dug around 6 fish ponds.  He has a lot of fish!

The most innovative thing he has done, though, is planting papaya trees all around and between the fish ponds.  Then, he can sell papayas for additional income and throw some of the fruits into the ponds to feed the fish.

Since his land is wet, he also planted taro, which replants itself and is a profitable crop to grow:

Another farmer had tried out jackbean as a cover crop and he showed us how the portion of his garden where jackbean was last year is much more fertile and productive than the part where it was not.  As a result, he planted it again, in this new area, intercropped with his maize:

Another story was from a community (represented by the man in the blue t-shirt) which was was empowered by West Teso SDS to petition the government to refurbish their local borehole so it would be protected from animals and be able to provide enough safe, clean water for everyone around:

As a last stop, we visited a church where some of the community members did some dramas portraying what they have been learning from West Teso SDS.  They acted out how savings groups work, how they learned to advocate for land rights with the local government, how they built peace in their community, and how to do conservation agriculture (that is the clip below):

Finally, some beautiful music from the acting group: