Valuable livestock in Kenya: bees!

When you think of the livestock that families raise to earn income, you probably think of cows and goats. But do you think of bees?

For Philip Nadomo in West Pokot, Kenya, bees are a precious part of his family’s livestock. Since he first heard about beekeeping, he has understood how they can be a source of income for families like his. In the same way that goats produce milk and grow in number, bees produce honey to eat or sell and increase their numbers as they take over new hives.

We’ve teamed up with an organization called African Beekeepers Limited to support beekeeping families in this part of Kenya. We provide 150 hives to each community. Up to 30 young people sign up to be part of the beekeeping group and receive five hives each. (Each hive costs about $65, so it costs about $350 to provide a set of hives and the supplies to hang them to each beekeeper.) African Beekeepers Limited provides harvesting equipment, training and honey processing units. They also purchase honey from the participants, guaranteeing a way for them to make money.

Men and women alike are participating in program. Unlike raising other animals, caring for bees is not physically taxing and doesn’t require people to travel long distances from home, which makes it safer for women. It’s easy to get the hives down from the trees using a pulley system; participants no longer have to climb into the trees to gather honey.  For many women here, beekeeping is one of the few opportunities for them to add to their family’s earnings.

Beekeeping was already a common way of making a living in West Pokot before the CWS program. Unlike traditional hives, though, the hives in the CWS program have two chambers. The bottom chamber is built first. Once bees have colonized it, a second chamber is added on top. The queen cannot move from the bottom to the top chamber. This design means higher honey production from each hive. “We are very grateful that we received this kind of hives, and we are expecting a good harvest of honey,” Philip says.

By introducing new hive designs and a few other best practices from modern beekeeping, we can help families significantly increase their honey production. This is also a way for families to earn a living that doesn’t tax their fragile ecosystem. West Pokot County can be a harsh place to live, with long droughts and scarce resources. Many families face food insecurity, and poverty is on the rise. Beekeeping, though, doesn’t put much strain on the environment. And the fact that families are making more money to cover household expenses means that they will be more resilient through future shortages.

Philip is new to the program, and four of his five fives are already colonized. “I’m still young, and this is my first group,” he says. “What we’ve been telling each other is to take good care of the hives because they will give us a lot of profit and benefits.” Philip already has goats, but he is planning on using the income from his honey sales to buy a cow.

For disaster survivors, transitional shelter and a bit of hope

September 28, 2018 started out as a normal Friday for Stofan. It wasn’t a workday, so he played a game of football with some friends and spent some quality time with his older son.

That evening, though, the day turned into a nightmare. The earth shook, and the land moved. A devastating earthquake struck, followed by a tsunami.

Luckily, Stofan was close to home when the quake hit. He was able to reach his wife and 1-year-old son, and he got his whole family to safety. Sadly, many others weren’t so lucky.

When the disasters were over, nothing was left of the village where the family lived. Stofan, his family and their neighbors lived under plastic tarps in a temporary camp. In order to have some privacy, Stofan salvaged some of the debris from his destroyed house and built a shelter. It was cramped and unbearably hot. Somehow, though, Stofan remained positive. “There are other people who lost their families,” he says. “I only lost my home. My family is still here, so I am lucky and blessed.”

CWS has been helping in this part of Indonesia since the disasters in September, delivering supplies and using a fleet of trucks to get water to tens of thousands of people each day. In February, we expanded the response to help communities build transitional shelters, or t-shelters. T-shelters are meant to be an in-between step for families like Stofan’s. They are sturdier and more substantial than tents and tarps, and families can move into them while they continue to hope for new, permanent houses.

Stofan stepped up to learn how to build the T-shelters. During the training course, he learned what he would need to build his own shelter and to help others. One day he admitted, “I never thought I would have a place to call home again. We don’t have savings, and after the disaster I lost my job as a handyman in Palu. I have many people depending on me: my wife and kids, my parents and my wife’s parents, too. The money we have is barely enough to get by day to day.”

Like so many of the other families left homeless by the disasters, Stofan’s family can’t afford to build a new house. That’s why these T-shelters are such a blessing; they mean a dignified and more comfortable home. Stofan built a shelter for his family through the program. He did such a great job with it that he became a construction group leader. Once he finished his shelter, he monitored others’ construction. Today, his family is living in a standard T-shelter, and he added a kitchen by using salvaged remains from his old home.

In reflecting on the months since that awful day in September, Stofan says, “I learned a lot, including new carpentry skills, which I can use to help others. Having CWS staff on hand to help us is good, too.” For as much as he’d rather the disaster had never happened, he does recognize this small silver lining that he has new skills that he can use in the future to provide for his family.

In recent months, dozens of community members and builders from six villages have learned to build t-shelters. We have supported 220 T-shelters in one of the hardest-hit areas around Palu. More than 100 other T-shelters are now under construction.

It’s never late to start healthy practices

You may have heard the statistic that 785 million people in our world don’t have convenient access to safe water (source). But have you thought about what that really means for those families? What toll does that take on their daily life?

Marn Sak is one of the 785 million. She is 79 and lives with three generations of her family in a small house in rural Cambodia that doesn’t have running water. Sak says that her family usually gets their water from a local pond and a canal.

Ponds and canals are unprotected and unsafe water sources. They can be contaminated by leaves, bugs or runoff. And yet, families like Sak’s often rely on them as their only source of water. Sak says that her family members often have diarrhea or other illness that come from drinking dirty water. They spend a lot of their money on medicine. Sometimes they have to stay home from work or school to get better, which results in a loss of income. For families where every dollar makes a big difference, this is a serious problem.

Our team in Cambodia is working with a local partner, the Association for Development and Our Villagers’ Rights, to help more families in the area access safe water. We reached out to 20 especially poor families in Sak’s village and invited them to an information session about clean water. The participants learned how to keep their water safe and clean, and asked lots of good questions. Each family went home with a ceramic water filter and a 5-gallon plastic storage container (with a lid to protect the water).

Sak joined the gathering for her family. As she was leaving, she told us that she was anticipating a positive change in her family’s health and habits. She felt like she understood the importance of having clean, safe water better–and she had the tools to make a change for her family. “I am very happy for this support,” she said. “The new information about why clean and safe water is important is welcome!”

Our team and partners are especially happy that CWS supporters have made it possible to provide the supplies–quality filters and water storage containers–as well as education so families can benefit immediately from their new knowledge.

A bumper crop for a single mom in Nicaragua

The word ‘multi-tasker’ doesn’t exist in the indigenous Miskito language, but no matter what language you’re speaking, Aracelly Saiman Omier is one. Araceli is from the San Carlos community of northern Nicaragua. She’s an avid gardener who works hard as a single mom to three children. She’s also a trained nurse and a leader in her community. The team at our local partner, Acción Medica Cristiana, knew that Araceli’s background as a nurse would make her a great health promoter. In this role, she helps her neighbors stay healthy. In particular, she encourages new moms in her community eat well and breastfeed their children.

In order to feed her children well and earn some extra money by selling vegetables, Aracelly decided to plant a garden. She cleared a large garden area and got to work. She planted tomatoes, cabbage, beets, cucumbers and squash. When she had some problems with pests, agronomists from Acción Medica Cristiana stepped in to help.

Aracelly eventually harvested a bumper crop of vegetables. She fed her children, and sold her tomatoes, cucumbers and other extras. Her harvest earned her about $500, which she used to buy a pair of horses. When her next harvest time comes, those horses will help her get her produce to the nearest town.

Aracelly wants her neighbors to have the same success that she’s had. She tells the women she works with that everyone can be a successful vegetable producer if they farm organically and following the agronomists’ suggestions.

“As a family, we are comfortable now.”

“I am so happy with the house. They finished building it around me. I needed a house so badly that I started to sleep here while the concrete block walls were still being built. I just put a mattress on the floor,” says Marie Olivia Sermé. 

Marie Olivia and her family lived in a mud-and-stick house in Haiti when the 2010 earthquake struck. Their house was damaged and unsafe, so they moved to a camp alongside other families facing homelessness. She was able to leave the camp and rent a mud-and-stick house for a while, but eventually she couldn’t afford the rent and stayed with a friend instead.  

Today, Marie Olivia and her family are living in a secure, well-constructed house that was built with support from CWS. There are 10 people living in the house, including Marie Olivia, her children, her common-law husband, two of her sisters and one sister’s family. “As a family, we are comfortable now,” says Marie Olivia. “We can go to bed without being disturbed by anyone.” 

In fact, this house brought even more love and joy into Marie Olivia’s life. Her partner, Samuel, was one of the construction workers who helped build her house. “I had a good collaboration with the construction workers—we are comfortable. In fact, during the construction work I started to date Samuel, who built my house,” she said.  

Collaboration is a key part of the construction process. “I contributed food, water and 40,000 gourdes [$440]. I paid 10,000 gourdes ($110) to dig the foundation, and I provided three manual laborers,” Marie Olivia recalls. UMCOR and CWS provided other supplies, construction workers and technical expertise.  

Finally, Marie Olivia and her family have a safe and sturdy home. “They used a lot of rebar and a lot of cement,” she recalls of the construction process. “There’s a rebar grid underneath the floor, and the columns are made of rebar. The house is strong, since it has a lot of materials. Everything was done in my presence. I will no longer be afraid; I will no longer need to take refuge elsewhere. I am ready to host other people, because several other people hosted me.” 

“The house means a lot of change in my life,” she continued. “I can just drink water and I fill like my stomach is full. I am not afraid. This is a big change for the children as well. My son said to me while he was playing: ‘mum, is it God Who did this for us?’ I am happy and I hope that other people will also get to be this happy.” 

“This house means a lot to us.”

“The wind can blow, hurricanes can pass, but this house will not have any problems,” says Lorius Charleron.  

That’s exactly the peace of mind that we hope to hear from Haitian families living in sturdy houses that CWS helps them build. Families like Lorius’s lost their fragile homes in the 2010 Haiti earthquake. “Our house was destroyed on January 12, 2010,” he says. “Then we used tin roofing sheets to prepare a closed space. The house was partly built with mud and sticks, and partly with rocks. We continued to live there until we moved into this house.”  

The family’s temporary home wasn’t fit to be a permanent house. “Where we were living was not pleasant,” recalls his 19-year-old daughter Loudine. “This house means a lot to us. The other house was not good. I am young, I have friends, but you don’t want to bring them to such a house as where we were living. I have already brought friends here.” 

Lorius has a large family; 12 people are living in his house, including Lorius, his wife, their children and two nieces. The family helped build their new home. “We prepared food for the construction workers, we gave them drinks, we dug the foundation and we worked as laborers. I paid 400 gourdes ($ 4.50) for two days of digging of the foundation. My sons and I dug the foundation for the columns. I also contributed 40,000 gourdes ($ 440) for the purchase of materials. Our relationship with the construction workers was very good,” he says. Lorius has even started working as a construction worker on other houses that are being built through the program. 

“I don’t know when I would ever be able to build a house, and even then I would not have been able to build such a house,” he says gratefully. “After January 12, construction had to be done differently, with more safety. In the community there were no houses like this one. This is another kind of house.” 

After family tragedy, hope in Haiti

Stanley lived with his aunt, Muratine Felix, until she passed away in 2017. Muratine’s name had been on the list of people who would receive help constructing a new home through an CWS construction program supported by the United Methodist Committee on Relief. The local team decided to move forward constructing the home for her family, even after her passing.  

Stanley and his wife, Irose Telusma, are taking care of their cousins, nieces and nephew. Eight of them live together, and all of their parents have passed. The five school-aged children are students. Felix works in the customs office in La Saline, Port-au-Prince, and his wife is a kindergarten teacher. 

After Muratine passed, Felix and his family lived in a rental house. Now they are moving into a house of their own. It’s ready for their arrival, down to the paintings already hanging on the walls. But it’s not new to them, since they helped with the construction. The family contributed rocks and sand. When they decided to build a bathroom inside rather than outside the home, they paid for the related costs. They also covered the costs of putting steel bars on the windows, paid for laborers to help dig the foundation, provided food and water to construction workers and paid to replace plywood for the porch that was damaged during construction.  

Today, the family is full of hope and excited for this new chapter. “We are full of joy. Now a different life has started,” Felix says. “This is a big change. It also removes an economic burden from our backs. We will be more prosperous.” 

“I thank the donors and organizations that contributed, because they take people out of difficult circumstances,” added Irose.