VICTORIA COMMUNITY PROJECT
FROM: MIKE WACHARA
TO: OUR SUPPORTERS
Hello,
It is with my great pleasure to pass our warm greetings from Rusinga, hoping that all is well. For the past few months we have been blessed to reactive rainfall and our community members are very busy working on their farms, some have managed to grow different crops such as the maize, potatoes, millets hoping that when the rain continue then they will be able to get good harvest which will make them to have some solutions to food insecurity in the island. With the rainfall the fishermen are also able to get some good catch as compared to when there is no rain fall, every morning we could see some smiles on their faces due to good catch of Omena, Nile patch and tilapia. Even though this may not go for along time since the pressure which is in the lake makes it hard for the catch to go for long, many people in the island depend on the lake and the population also grow rapidly making the fish from the lake not to be able to feed the people of rusinga.
THE PROJECT
- THE FISH FARM
This is our 4th month since we stocked our ponds with new tilapia fingers, the ponds are doing well and the fish are growing big each day. We hope that when things go well where by we are able to feed the fish with proper quality feed and of the correct quantity our farm will be able to produce healthy and sizable fish for the people of rusinga,
Our fish farm has picked up so well as we compare with our first stocking. We are able to use the challenges which we faced on our fist harvest to improve and we truly enjoy every moment we spend in the farm and to see the fish swim happily and eat the commercial feeds and also the local feeds.
Our future plan is to expand our production by venture in fish farming where we shall produce fish in the cages. The one good thing with the cage farming we shall be able to produce many fish to help us meet the high demand for fish in the island and to the outside market, as many people prefer to eat the fish as compared to the red meat.
- ENVIRONMENTAL CONSERVATION
Victoria project has got a lot of interest on the environment and with this we would like to get into projects which help the community to have a conducive place to live. One of the things which we are interested to do is ensure we live in a clean area .
With these we are interested to start a tree nursery school where we wish to raise a total of 5000 seedlings of different species, with that we shall sell the seedlings to our community members, we may also donate some to the schools and churches ,our project will also create a platform to teach and create awareness on the core values and the importance of conserving our environment. We also hope that when things go well we will be able to support our fishing beaches with trashes which they will use to dispose the wastes to help them live in clean beaches, Victoria project will work in hand with the local authorities to mobilize the young women, youths to offer free cleaning on the public places and to have health talks on measures on the environment.
- WOMEN AND YOUTH EMPOWERMENT PROGRAMS
The Victoria project has come up with the idea to support women and youths in Rusinga island. Unemployment is one of the major problems which affects the people in Kenya, our able women and youths have come up with different ideas to start some small scale business to earn their livings. Many widows who have children to support has come together to start small business and they seems to get however little to support their children. Many youths in the island also are in transport sector where they ride motor cycle while some are in different business to earn their daily livings. With this hard work they do we have develop interest to support them with some small loans to make them expand their businesses so that they may be able to meet the demand of their customers. Our idea on these is to form a small group with them under our project is provide them with some small loans which each of them will repay with some small interest to the project. If we get the green light to start this we shall call them have a meeting with them and involve some experts to teach them how to operate business and make it successful.
- BOY, GILR CHILD EDUCATION
We would like to work with the local authorities to ensure our small girls and boys get well education. Many girls and boys drop out of school due to factors such us early pregnancy, drug abuse, peer influence, lack of school fees among other factors.
Our project will tend to identify some needy and orphans in the community who may need support so that they can get the right to education. We also hope to be able to support the children with school uniforms as some parents may not be able to buy full school uniform for their children.
- Talent creation and innovations
Victoria project has interest on helping kids and youths from Rusinga with different talents to make them achieve their dreams. We have seen many children in the island having different types of talent of which if well natured it may help them go far. Victoria project has interest to nature talents such as acrobatic, dancing, yoga, football, singing, etc.
We hope when these youths are provided with a platform to learn they will be able to change the face of our community.
We have seen many people who use their talents to prosper and latter came back to give to the community, through this program we look forward to run an exchange program with kids in Europe where we will be able to send our kids for a cultural exchange programs to schools in Europe and the kids in Europe also coming to Kenya to visit us and with that great network we hope to achieve our dreams in future.