If it were not for the chicken I wouldn’t have afforded my heart treatments in Dar es salaam, they [chicken] saved my life In the past, I could only farm one acre but now I can employ casual labourers and farm up to four acres.
Before joining the project my main source of income was from casual labour – attending other people’s farms, but the income was so small and untimely. To date, through sales of eggs and chicken I have been able to buy my own farm, bought a water pump for my garden and I can now feed my family throughout the year. Through these chickens I accumulated some money and decided to construct an improved house, iron-roofed and comfortable for my family
In 2017 alone, I earned more than TZS. 700,000 from sales of eggs and chicken, used part of the money to buy a dairy cow…this would have been impossible if it were not for the chickens! Chickens can help me address my financial needs without crying out for help from relatives or neighbors.
For the last three years chicken [meaning income from sales of chicken] have been paying for my children’s school fees, one of the children was able to join the college and is now employed. We are very much respected in our village just because of chicken, we are now eligible to get loans from Village Community Banks (VICOBA) for other entrepreneurship activities. I don’t expect to go back to the forests for Ndezi because there is enough meat [chicken] available at the community level especially within my compound.
