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Uplifting Lives of 200 Poor Families in Yuexi

Source:Humana People to People ChinaDate:2016-11-15 00:00:00Click:735
CD Yuexi is a community development project funded by the Baxter International Foundation. The main purpose of the project is to improve the health of 200 children through instigating better nutrition by supporting the children’s families in small scale crop production and animal husbandry and through providing health checks and referrals to health centers for children with health complications for treatment. The project also aims at building an understanding and awareness of health, nutrition, and hygiene to 1200 local families by establishing 40 "Health Action Self-help Groups".


Buzi Yiri is the Project Manager for CD Yuexi. Here he tells how he started up the project and what method he used in selecting the 200 families.


“From the very beginning I realized that it would be helpful if I involved everyone in the project area: the local leaders and the community at large. First I met with the local authorities, the local government and other stakeholders such as the Public Health Bureau, the Woman’s Federation and other relevant departments whom I expected would help out in different aspects. After meeting all the relevant departments I went further to meet the village leaders, who are the very people living together with the villagers. I wanted to find out more about the situation in the villages, the population, the residents, those who had income and those who lacked any source of income. After acquiring all the necessary information I started the process of selecting the 200 families who were to be assisted by the project. Together with the village committee and the villagers we considered families who had children ranging from the age of 3 to 6 years. We also considered those who did not frequent migrant work, reason being that if they went out for migrant work nobody would take care of the productions at home. We also considered those who had the passion, will and made a choice by themselves to be part of the program. We also put into consideration that we should find people who are active and are willing to develop themselves and the community at large. We were looking for people who wanted development and were willing to learn together with other villagers thus fulfilling the main objective of the project. After this process our project staff then registered the selected households and started the training process and explained the whole process of what we wanted to do together as a team, including them as villagers.”


What has Buzi Yiri, the project team and the cooperation with villagers so far done for the community and what does he think about the progress they have made?


“As a project we have managed to reach out to 1,322 households with trainings about nutrition, hygiene and sanitation. We also managed to order 1,800 chicks of which each of the 200 families received 9 chicks. We bought vegetable seeds and 1,400 grams of rice seeds which we managed to share among 91 families. After giving the seeds to the families we gave training on how to plant and manage the crops.


In April after agreement with Yuexi County Public Health Bureau we had the 200 children receive a health check.


As a trial on how to improve food security for the families we gave out quinoa seeds to the families. Each family planted a small portion and all the portions in total covered 10mu. The project provides training on how to manage this new crop and since it is the first time to try the crop it is not doing very well. We hope that when we do it the second time it will produce better results. Next time we hope to invite an expert to give trainings on how to grow this quinoa.

Maybe I should also tell what one of the village leaders (Wuli Yishinzi) said about our project. He said he is happy to have such a program in his village because it is bringing change to the people. The project is giving trainings, chicken, vegetable seeds and rice seeds which help us to improve our lives. He said he was also happy for the health checks which are being done for the children. Now parents will know what health problems their children have and they will seek treatment before the problem become big.”

Buzi Yiri says he can see a great change in the lives of the villagers, now when they pay attention to hygiene, wash their clothes and clean their houses. He says, though some are still struggling to adapt, by continuous training he hopes to see everyone getting into the habit. He also looks forward to the improvement in nutrition when the families start getting eggs and harvesting their vegetables though he thinks this will take some time and a lot of training. He hopes to see the families preparing a variety of nutritious dishes thereby improve health and the nutrition status of their families.

2nd from left, the Project Leader Bu Ziyiri out in the community

Meeting with villagers

Children undergo health check

Each family gets 9 baby chicks

Villagers receivd vegetable seeds from the project

This project is funded by the Baxter International Foundation (www.baxter.com).

Content in this article reflects the views of the authors and not necessarily those of the funder.







 

 

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