Joyce's Chicken Project in Senegal through Peace Corps...

Riana from Colorado, Ibu, a farmer, Joyce and Kristin

Our daughter Joyce has been serving in Senegal as a Peace Corps volunteer for the past one and half years. Based in Thies, she has been involved in teaching English at American Corner of the Cultural Center, helping a jewelry distributor in marketing, project design and administration and assisting a farmer who is a well respected community leader.

She is scheduled to finish her tenure in Senegal in May. Prior to her departure, she is working on her last project. This project is to build a chicken farm that will help raise up to 500 chickens. This project will  be funded as a partnership program where the community raises 30% and Peace Corps supports the balance. The Peace Corps portion will have to be raised through support from individuals and organizations that share the purpose and intent of this project. The amount that needs to be raised is approximately $5,000.

If you want to participate in assisting a Senegalese agricultural community, or if you know someone who may be interested in this type of project, here is the opportunity. The link to make your donation is included herein below.

The following is the snapshot summary of this project which Joyce has prepared:.

Since the 2005 closure of borders to imported chickens due to the outbreak of avian flu, there has been a severe market deficiency in adequately meeting the demand for poultry in Senegal. The main objective of this project is thus to address this gap by producing poultry, improving income generation as well as food security for the community. Another desired outcome of the project is to improve soil quality and crop production at the project site as well as among other agricultural producers in the community by using the chicken manure as a fertilizer. 

The last objective is to promote environmental education based on the type of chicken coop being built. In collaboration with the French organization La Voute Nubienne, the project will demonstrate the positive potential of sustainable architecture with natural, locally-sourced and lower-cost materials. This type of structure, furthermore, renders a temperature opposite of what's happening outside; when it's hot outside, it is cooler indoors and vice versa. As chickens do not sweat and expend much energy regulating their body temperatures, this unique feature of the structure is likely to lead to improved poultry production, approximately 15% larger chickens. 

The grant primarily will be used to purchase equipment and build the production facility, while the community's contribution is predominantly through brickmaking and labor to construct the coop, as well as maintaining the facilities once poultry production has begun. We forecast that the impact of the project will be to provide the participants a functional and sustainable revenue-generating activity through which they are able to respond directly to a market demand within their community.

The fundraising link is here: https://donate.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=donate.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=14-685-012

Also, Kristin and I have recently visited Joyce in Senegal over Christmas and I have posted a blog. To read this blog, please click here.

Thank you for your interest in and support for this project. May God bless you richly. - Jeffrey