Angelina Beda (Mama Zawadi) lives in Kibaoni village in Mpimbwe District Council. She is 38 old and a widow with 4 children. Anglina relies on subsistence agriculture to feed her family and also sell surplus to support her kids in school. Agriculture is seasonal in Mpimbwe and on the dry season, the situation is usually tough which forces her to sell vegetables but it has a very small profit that is not enough to meet family needs.
Before joining the poultry project, Angelina struggled so hard to provides for her family. She has owned chickens for a few years but they were constantly affected by disease so few of her chicks would survive to maturity. Angelina had aspirations to start poultry production as a business but she was never able to produce for her family to consume at home and for surplus to sell at market. Rose is delighted to be participating in a project which is helping her to unleash her dreams to become a successful chicken farmer.
Angelina was lucky to be among the first beneficiaries of the project and she went through training and received 9 chicken and 1 rooster. She was so excited and did her best to raise her poultry. She received the chicken on July and in Mid-August, a common flue broke out which significantly affected her chicken. Some died and other grew so weak. LCMO supported her with medicine worth Tshs 60,000 ($ 27) only reduced and by that time she only had 3 hens and lost 7.
At some point she texted Emmanuel (project supervisor) to come and collect the remaining chicken as she cannot manage anymore but instead, we encouraged and supported her with necessary support and with time, one of the three hens hatched 15 chicks which all grew to maturity. Her stock later increased and sold part to improve the chicken shelter and also to meet her family needs. She is now among the best performing member of the project and her flock has been on an upward trend and she sold some to purchase building blocks and remained with 31 birds. A key new skill is being able to perform diagnosis and she has been vaccinating her own flock and the flocks of other farmers in the community. She mobilizes her neighbors to jointly contribute to vaccine and this has helped them vaccinate their chicken on time and at an affordable cost. Angelina is hoping to grow her project and later construct a house enough to accommodate all her children.
