EKYAN Stories 3: from groups that learn to groups that decide

There is a difference between a group that learns together and a group that decides together. The first receives information. The second acts on it.

In Butula, the Lwanda Gangu poultry group of 27 members had survived on grants. Agripreneur Joshwa Oyano changed the question from who can fund us to what can we build ourselves. Each member set up household vegetable production and an Azolla unit for high-protein poultry feed, and the group was linked to a distributor for bulk purchase of dual-purpose day-old chicks. Today the group is building the base of a member-owned poultry and vegetable enterprise, one household at a time.

In Maralal, Samburu, agripreneur Nakayo Kone mobilised ten women into a savings group contributing KES 100 a week. Pooled savings boosted one member's vegetable stock at a time, and each woman set up a kitchen garden using sunken beds suited to the dry conditions.