Our quest to help alleviate poverty in Sierra Leone through helping farmers with chicken flocks has not changed but is expanding. Here is an update on what we have learned and what we are doing. Your support in prayer is essential and financial support very much appreciated. Following you will see two reports on how we are partnering with Mercy Ships in training farmers to learn Farming God’s Way and how we are adapting and expanding our program to also teach our farmers to do Poultry Farming God’s Way. Success and prosperity in life is related to obedience to natural laws of relationships and nature and these are really God’s created laws. In Jeremiah 29:11 it says “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” In Sierra Leone, for the last 9 years, the work we support has been carried out by the faithful workers of Sierra Canadian Humanitarian and Development Organization or in short SCHDO (pronounced skidoo).

Conrad Van Dijk

The donated corn seeds from Canada are just starting to sprout and should out-produce the local varieties!   This corn will be purchased for the SCHDO (Sierra Canadian Humanitarian & Development Organization) feedmill in order to feed the chickens in the Poultry Project.  It is still too early to tell how well the corn is doing but we are supplying a lot of prayer (and fertilizer!) for the best crop.

Did You Know? October and November are the last two months of Sierra Leone’s rainy season.  In virtually rains every day from April to November, peaking in July and August sometimes raining all day.   The dry season lasts from December to April.

Nana Kamara is a 40 year old Sierra Leonean woman living in the village of Makombie, Northern Province, who is involved in the SCHDO corn growing project which is supported by CVMCanada.   She is as enthused as most of the other farmers to be part of the Project.   Nana, a mother of four children, says life has been difficult for her family.  She and her husband also farm rice and grow vegetables, but the money earned does not last them through the year into the next planting season.  Now, Nana says the corn project has given her family high hopes of an improved income earning and a relatively better life.  She is delighted to have some stability after fleeing from one hiding place to another and mourning the death of her grandson during the country’s recent civil war.

Ten farmers have been selected to collectively grow 60 acres of corn.  They attended a workshop on September 2 and are being trained in business management and microfinance.  The farmers will receive the seeds and fertilizer on loan and will grow the corn.  SCHDO will purchase the harvested corn from the farmers, send it to the feedmill, and use it as the main ingredient in the poultry feed.

Providing our own corn for the feedmill is just one more step along the way to becoming a self-sustaining poultry industry for the impoverished farmers in Sierra Leone.  Everyone is quite excited about the progress!

Conrad Van Dijk has just returned from a very fruitful trip to Sierra Leone (July 29 to August 14) and after six months of planning, the pieces are starting to fall together!

• Farmers will soon be planting 60 acres of corn for chicken feed.
• New chicks are being ordered to replace the current layers and to increase our number of farmers.
• The team spent time in prayer and discussion to stand against the obstacles that are keeping the farmers so poor.
• A more holistic approach is being used to help farmers, including teaching about how to break the cycle of poverty which, besides generating income, includes paying off debts, saving money, and educating children.
• Microfinance principles are being utilized in which the farmers form groups and are accountable to each other in  in repaying the loans (cost of chickens) and proper management of the chickens.
• A participatory decision making process has been implemented whereby farmers and the community leaders, such as chiefs and elders, are included.

Please continue to pray for our work in Sierra Leone!

(Click on a thumbnail to scroll through images)

Here are some photos of Conrad’s second week in Sierra Leone which he spent visiting the three small churches that have developed as a result of the Alpha Program in our farming communities, holding brainstorming sessions for the next two years of the Poultry Project, visiting the Network for Children in Need and the community of polio victims, and making preparations for the Container items to be distributed as soon as it clears customs!

Please keep Conrad and the Project in your prayers!

Cutlasses made by polio victims

Having discussions as part of our planning process and workshops. We have had a lot of planning sessions this time, to plan the expansion of the poultry project for 2010.

Local cooking stove they (polio victims) made as a gift to the sierra leone president to show him what they can do.

Part of our workshop as we are discussing the flip charts on the wall regarding plans for 2010.

Polio victims leadership group on their new land.