We are a community based that started in 2004, ( ZM/KIJ/242/KU4/2013), with an aim of joining the needy together in the wards of Magata/Karutanga and Gwanseli to start projects that help our members and the community at large to ease the burden of poverty and social interaction to be more self reliant economically and socially. With the help of the Tanzanian goverment, NGOs and individuals awareness of our members' poverty problems has risen and efforts to solve them have been made.Down here are some of our achievements.
In 2004 we started as a group of thirty members in Magata Village with six group projects namely banana cultivation. pineapple cultivation, orphans patronage, nursery keepers, environment improvement and vanila culivation.
Now we have about 700 members in different projects.
Project groups are with not more than ten members led by the group chairman,secretary and a tresurer
Project group members meet at least once a month to discuss problems facing their project and ways to solve them. Problems differ in different groups but common in all groups are proper technology in implimenting projects, markets for product and source of capital.
Banana cultivation is the most practised project. All members of our organisation are in ten groups of this project. Banana is a traditional subsistance andcash crop of our area. Its cultivation in our area is from time imemorial. But from 1990s the traditional cultivas showed signs of failure because of diseases and pests. Food security was threatened.
New cultivas were introduced from farmers' extension centres. Some people were reluctant to plant new cultivas and thus we joined hands with the government to make people aware of the new cultivas and technologies of cultivating Now new cultivas earn for our members more than coffee, -the traditional cash crops.
Dairy goats keeping among our members started since 2005 to get milk and meat to combat malnutrion.
Our group joined a project in our district "KOPA MBUZI LIPA MBUZI", take a goat loan and pay a goat. We took five goats from this project. In two years we had repayed and we started our internal project of distribution of goats.Members give goat loans to each other and groups oversee repayment. From five goats we now boast of more than 200 goats
Pineapple farming has been started for nutrition and income generation of the farmers. A total of five acres is cultivated in Nshambya village ,three in Magata village and seven in Karutanga village.
Orphans patronage started in 2004. In every village of our two there is committee to identify orphans of school age. We take their names and arrange patronage from our villages, the district education fund, Umoja Savings and Credit Union, Lweru Anglican Diocese and Friends of Magata living and working in diaspora.! orphans in our two wards are being supported to get primary and secondary education.
In our efforts to get patronage, in 2004 we got one gymnasium in Germany that supports orphans at Kishoju Secondary School in our ward.From 2004 on they support about 50 pupils a year.They pay school fees, buy uniforms and books amouting to TSh. 200,000/=per student.
Vanila growers formed another project group in 2004. They have faced an aqute drop in price that left more than half of the group out of business.
Nursery keepers keep nurseries for trees and flowers They sell seedlings to individuals and institutions. Every year they give out about 10% of their seedling production to environment keepers to plant in different arreas of our ward.
Aquaculture project is being run by our members for better nutrion of families and income generation. We have 12,earth ponds, (with a total surface area of 2.5ha) owned by our members They keep tilapia fish.
In August 2013 pig husbandry was started by some of our members. With an average of 5 pigs per head 12 of our members have ventured into this project.
At present we are looking for aid and partenership to improve our projects and to start new ones such as IT training in our secondary schools .