Kenya - Emmanuel Baya & Jescar Mbuche Shehe - 2009/2013 Graduates

by Emmanuel Karisa Baya

Magarini Children Centre and Organic Demonstration Farm

submitted January 2019

https://gyazo.com/bb93ef5a3fe5469b592b74163ad55ce6

Mbuche and Emmanuel at Hell’s Kitchen, a local geological formation that is also a budding tourist attraction in the community

Excerpts from the 2018 Annual Report

Message from the Founder

In the farm the main challenge was that we received more rain than expected. The rains started in the month of March 2018 and we responded on time by planting corn, vegetables and green peas with a lot of hope of a good harvest but this was not the case as the rains were too heavy, leading to floods in some areas adjacent to the centre. As a result the farm was too wet, leading to poor harvest and erosion of some of the crops we planted. Corn was greatly affected but not as much as the other crops, forcing us to harvest the corn when it was still green. These changes made the people in the community understand that climate change is real. This gave us an opportunity to create awareness on climate change and the need to care for the environment.

https://gyazo.com/a62de3687c266f61c2edfd4c44dd21c6

Salvaging the harvest

2019 is also significant as it’s the year which we will have students in the highest level of primary education, that is class eight, and we will be participating in the national examinations for the first time since inception. After class eight national examinations, children will be proceeding to secondary school. In order to prepare our pupils for this important transition from primary school to secondary school we hired three more teachers who will be able to manage the class and prepare them for the examinations.

The girls’ dormitory is now in use by the mature girls at the centre. However, we have only four double-decker beds and still lack more beds and other requirements to make the dream of housing the girls at the centre a reality. The dormitory provides a safe space for the girls – safe from sexual harassment in the village and safe from the heavy work load imposed on the girl-child making it difficult to concentrate on studies.

https://gyazo.com/05468e946e6c511f16150bbd49cb5245

Visitors assisting students in the classroom

Regardless of all the challenges that appeared to be so huge, we made it through as a result of the love and support from friends and the community. All this made it possible for children who could not go to school to access quality education and life skills that will help them in their future. Together we have come this far and are making progress towards a future that is bright for all the children and the community at large.

The growth that we have experienced over the years and the achievements that we managed to achieve were possible because of the friends and supporters of the centre who valued our dream and became part of us together. We have made a huge difference in the life of the children and the community at large.

Our Vision and Mission

Long Term Goal

The MCCODF builds communities' capacity to secure their own food, nutrition, and income at the household level to alleviate poverty. We mainly focus on sustainable improvement of the livelihoods of small scale farmers through sustainable agriculture and in particular organic farming; a system of farming using locally available materials to improve the soil, yield and farmers' standards of living.

https://gyazo.com/c1bd29afe984e721ab072ba8b301c2ff

Kids enjoying the new liberary project

Mission Statement

To nurture children to be self-reliant individuals through a dynamic curriculum that entails: hard work, discipline, spiritual build up, social cohesiveness and moral values.

Vision Statement

The overall goal is to build a self-reliant, independent community where all people grow their own food, through sustainable agriculture, where people will take care of the soil, environment, and nature for the benefit of the future generations

Core Values

Respect and promotion of indigenous African knowledge on farming, care-giving, and community development

Equality for all: God made all people equal - our organization is committed to a development process that promotes equality

Rights and dignity for all: We believe in and strive to uphold the rights and dignity of all people especially in the rural communities

Stewardship: We believe in God to protect the dignity of everybody to exploit earthly goods in accordance with God’s law and individual order

Our Projects of 2018

School Feeding Programme

Feeding the children is a continuous activity at the centre as the children have to eat daily. This has challenged the community members to volunteer to work at the Demonstration Farm so as to be able to produce enough food to feed the children. This feeding programme allows the children to have a nutritious well-balanced meal at the Centre, so they do not need to walk a long distance back home to get food. This year, despite the challenges that we faced due to the heavy rains, we harvested some corn, sorghum, and vegetables which helped in feeding the children. Quite a bit of the crops were washed away by the heavy rains. We still appeal for more help to feed the children before the drip irrigation system becomes functional.

https://gyazo.com/475338d71fbb6cca1ff76ccfbdc87d4f

Children getting their daily meal through the school feeding programme

Pig Keeping Project

This project has been a source of providing the children with protein for the last four years. The animals are cared for without use of commercial feeds. The are fed with natural grass and herbs from the trees and maize from the farm. This year we recieved support to build a pigpen at the centre. The children learn to feed and care for the pigs, which is a skill that they will be able to use later in life. This is one of our mandates - to train the children in life skills that can help them after they finish their school. All the learning of caring for the pigs is "learning by doing." The pigs are also a source of organic fertilizer as all the manure is taken and used in the farm to make the soil more fertile. This helps the community understand how to use the manure to make the soil more productive.

Medicine Plants Peace Garden

The medicine plant project has grown as most of the trees like Moringa, Mdhalahisani, and Aloe Vera have done well throughout the year. This has made us to harvest the Moringa leaves and we have also established nurseries to be able to plant more Moringa. The medicine trees project has so far helped the children and the community at large to know the importance of preserving the local knowledge of medicinal trees that can help them in treating and also preventing some health problems. It is one of our mandates to conserve these trees to help people to be able to use natural trees to treat their sicknesses. This will also help them to appreciate the importance of conserving the trees, hence helping to address the climate change challenges they are facing.

https://gyazo.com/c7fe8381ca24882f520fbe7fc822846b

Medicinal trees

Drip Irrigation Project

The drip irrigation system installation is at an advanced stage. The land has been prepared and measurements and other layout activities are being finalized. It is expected that by March 2019 the drip irrigation system will be operational. This will enable the centre to grow food all the year round, thereby enhancing sustainability through increasing food security at the centre.

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Kenya - Emmanuel Karisa Baya - 2009 Graduate

Magarini Children Centre and Organic Demonstration Farm

Graduate Impact Study site visit, April 2014

by Steven Cutting

“Let’s go to the community not to transform them, but to be transformed by them.”

Emmanuel, Mbuche and their six girls!

First and foremost Emmanuel is a farmer. His roots are in the soil. His hands are in the soil. And it is in the soil that he finds his strength and passion. Working closely with his wife, Mbuche, who is also an ARI graduate, he started a school in 2008 called the Magarini Children Centre and Organic Demonstration Farm with the aim of providing education to the many children who had lost their parents through AIDS.

Begun under the shade of a tree, they now have a four-room school house and the local community participates generously by serving as foster parents and volunteer teachers. Emmanuel returns their kindness as best he can, sometimes with money, if it is available, and often with vegetables from the farm’s garden. In addition to the standard curriculum, children are taught farming and take part in raising the crops that help support the school. Recently he purchased an additional 31 acres of land, on which he plans to relocate the school, with the farm adjacent. This spring construction started on the new facilities.

https://gyazo.com/5415587070cab976baa5684e437fa96f

Planting on their new land

Emmanuel has a deep love for his community and works closely with them, taking the approach, “Let’s go to the community not to transform them, but to be transformed by them.” He always says his people are rich in talents and resources, and likes to exemplify this with a story about the time he taught them about wood vinegar. Wood vinegar is resin extracted from smoke during the process of making charcoal and is a useful means of natural pest and disease management. Since the farmers are already experts on charcoal making, he was easily able to build on knowledge they already had.

In 2003 Emmanuel and his wife initiated the formation of a women farmers’ group in the village. Women work together in a common field where they share ideas and experiment with new practices. Whatever methods they find useful in the group field, they take back to do in their own gardens, such as the use of “zai pits” for growing corn. As the climate in the area is very dry, corn is planted with 5 or 9 seeds in one meter square pits, filled to a depth of 60 cm with compost, soil, and charcoal, for maximum conservation of water.

Women farmers’ group - making use of meeting time to prepare the evening meal

Sharing is the key element in this group, as Emmanuel sees the farmers as the ones with the “real wisdom.” It is in this environment of equal voice, equal status, and equal participation that Emmanuel is working to realize his dream for his community “to create a self-reliant community through organic farming in which each person can live to his or her fullest potential.”

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Kenya - Jescar Mbuche Shehe - 2013 Graduate

Magarini Children Centre and Organic Demonstration Farm

Graduate Impact Study site visit, April 2014

by Steven Cutting

“To be a woman leader, as I learned in ARI, is to help other women also to come out from the fearness of being a leader.”

https://gyazo.com/963f8d5a6d27c8ae33be5d2b3be9d878

Mbuche

Mbuche and her husband Emmanuel are companions in marriage, parents of six daughters, fellow graduates of ARI and partners in working with their communities. When her husband first went to ARI in 2009 it seemed only natural that Mbuche should have the same opportunity. She did so four years later, and with that, “the thinking now is together, so I think we are going to move.”

https://gyazo.com/34a60182c8da017e4944bd4bb3b12586

Children at the Magarini Children’s Centre

In 2008 the two of them started the Magarini Children Centre and Organic Demonstration Farm. Due to the AIDS epedimic there were a high number of orphans and vulnerable children in the area, so they started this school with the aim of providing education and skills in farming that would give them better opportunities for their futures. The children are matched with foster families in the village. The first classes started under the shade of a tree and later four classrooms were built. Last year Emmanuel purchased 31 acres of land, enough to have the school with its farm side by side. Mbuche started farming herself at the age of nine, “really farming,” she puts it, and from that labor she would buy school books and pens. As Farm Manager at the school, she wants the students to see how, “Farming is a good thing, where if you put it in your heart it can help you."

https://gyazo.com/ca4ed3e555341f71b5bfd9dd19ea5250

Women farmers in their regular meeting place on the field

Even before the school, Mbuche had built strong connections with the community through the creation of a women farmer’s group. In 2003 she started talking with the ladies, saying, “Why don’t we start farming together and then we see how we can come up.” That group is still going and now has 27 members, each moving around to help on each other's farms. They also keep a group field where they share ideas and experiment with new techniques. They give some of the harvest to the school.

Mbuche digging a zai pit for planting corn in arid climates and caring for the pigs

At ARI, Mbuche became very enthusiastic about making fertilizers on her own, using local resources like manure and fallen leaves; techniques she excitedly shares with the women. Previously she had thought that fertilizer was something that could only be purchased. This attitude of self-reliance has given her a new perspective on development. Before she felt, “development is a very big thing where you cannot do it as a poor person,” because it is about getting rich and having cars and a big house. Now she sees development as being able to stand on one’s own and building slowly. “In need of development you can start with just a small thing. Even one egg can be development for you; if you have a hen…then you can start by those things and be developed.”

ARI also had an important impact on her leadership approach. “To be a woman leader, as I learned in ARI, is to help other women also to come out from the fearness of being a leader,” she shares. “Now I am a farmer. Then maybe I give the knowledge of farming. That one is a leader, because people will say, ‘Ah someone, another woman is the one who told us,’ so that one is leadership. Now I can stand in front of many women or even men. So I am a leader.”

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