For a long time, the Mwangaza Women’s Group in Kapseret laboured to make ends meet with little success.
Anne Ng’etich, the investment group’s chairperson, says they used to meet every week and contribute Sh100, but their business ventures never quite took off.
“We later opened a bank account and after several months of saving we purchased local chicken breeds and reared them for eggs and meat, but they used to take too long to mature,” says Ng’etich. She says this all changed when Uasin Gishu County, through the Inua Mama na Kuku initiative, backed their venture. “Mwangaza is among many women groups the county government engaged to boost poultry production through rearing of superior chicken breeds raised through improved animal husbandry,” says Ngetich. The Uasin Gishu county government set aside Sh10 million for the purchase of an improved multi-purpose chicken variety and this initiative has benefited 450 groups.
County Executive Committee member in charge of Agriculture Cyril Cheruiyot says they have purchased more than 450,000 birds.
“We have procured over 450,000 birds and we want to get to a million chicken to be given to more groups. Women, especially in the rural homes, are well-placed to manage chicken and cater for household needs and we believe supporting them will positively impact on their lives,” said Dr Cheruiyot.
Under the programme, the women are first trained on animal husbandry so that their chicken are properly reared with the view to raising production.
After training, each group is given 100 hybrid multipurpose chicken breeds. Anne Chenoo, a member of the Mwangaza group, says the population of their birds has doubled eight months after their training. The group now profits from the sale of eggs and chicken meat. “Using our initial savings in our group bank account we bought an incubator with a capacity of handling 160 eggs and successfully hatched 140 chicks.
The chicks are maturing at a faster rate than the common breeds and are preferred in the market. They have really supplemented our income,” Chenoo said. Janet Saikwa, another member of the group, says the project has empowered them and they do not have to rely on their husbands’ income to get by. She says they now want to expand their investment and begin to rear dairy goats and cows.
“We were struggling at the beginning but now we sell eggs from the improved variety at a minimum of Sh30 while the bird retails at Sh700 when mature. This has opened our eyes and we believe we can improve our financial position,” said Saikwa.