Originally posted March 16th, 2014

While the weather may not always feel like it, spring has arrived and so have the baby goats.
Six or seven came running up to us last week when I went to meet Lila, the woman who wants to start up a chicken coop here in Naddi. They spent the entire interview jumping up on my legs and chewing on my shoelaces and it was perfect.

This chicken coop is my primary focus during my time at EduCARE. It’s been two years since the first chicken coop was started as a microfinance opportunity for one of the families here, and its success has inspired its repetition. Lila has been raising goats with her husband for years and reached out to EduCARE recently looking for the chance to create an additional source of income. She saw how much we have been doing for younger women in the community and questioned why we couldn’t expand to help the older generation as well. She and her husband have had to sell many of their goats and quite a bit of land over the years to provide for their 5 children, including several dowries for their daughters, and Lila explained that she is in need of less energy-intensive work for the future.

While she speaks no English and therefore communication is extremely limited, her proactivity in seeking out this project matched the energetic and determined spirit I saw in her when we met. It was an exciting step forward in this project. Until now, my efforts have been focused on laying ground work for the long term, but now that the weather is finally improving and construction can take place soon, hopefully it won’t be long until we get to see the coop physically standing and the chickens purchased.