Which came first?

We hope the order is (1) chicken coop; (2) baby chicks; (3) many eggs for malnourished and at-risk children! The chicken coop is finally finished, and we plan to transport day-old hybrid "layer" chicks from Kampala on March 5. On Thursday, the interior of the chicken coop was sprayed with a strong insecticide, so in two weeks the coop should be ready for the chicks!

Valparaiso's World Relief Campaign

The 16^th of February will kick off Valparaiso University’s World Relief Campaign. We are excited about their efforts to raise money to bolster the nutrition efforts for malnourished children in Bundibugyo. The funding will be used to empower communites to create sustainable decentralized feeding centers. This will involve recipe trials for nutritious foods, soybeans for planting and returning back to the program, chickens/chicken coops for eggs, and male dairy goats for breeding with local female goats, providing a local milk supply for needy children. We want to thank the SALT committee and all of those who are working so hard to make this a successful campaign. We will be happy to answer any questions you have along the way. Feel free to comment.

Alex

This is Alex. He is a Ugandan Christ School agriculture teacher with a lot of knowledge and hands on experience with chickens, goats, even fish! He is also working as a chicken consultant. Alex is coordinating the construction of the chicken coop, purchase of chickens, vaccinations, and hiring of a chicken keeper. Alex is really hard-working, with responsibilities ranging from teaching students to caring for goats and fish ponds. I admire his devotion to his family - though he lives far from them, he pays school fees for his younger brothers.

Stephanie

Hey everyone, I’m Stephanie Jilcott. When I was a World Harvest intern in Bundibugyo 2 years ago, I worked on the World Harvest Mission/ Nyahuka Health Center Nutrition Program. After completing my graduate studies in nutrition, I decided to return to Bundibugyo for 18 months to continue working with the WHM/NHC Nutrition Program. I am also working on decentralization of the current Program to 2-3 additional health centers in the district; with decentralization, we hope to transition to providing patients with locally available foods. One locally available food is eggs - We have nearly finished construction of a chicken coop as part of a demonstration project to use eggs for children in the nutrition program. To educate the community about the importance of healthy young child feeding practices, we have commissioned nutrition dramas to be performed in several villages. In January 2007, we collected anthropometric data from 900 children from 30 different villages in Bundibugyo to guide programmatic efforts.