A Little Advice Goes A Long Way
At a recent gathering called a “sharing meeting,” a woman named Banyua related how her animal husbandry business experienced a complete turnaround with the help of a Household Advisor. These Advisors are elected by their communities to receive training on important topics like agriculture, income generation, savings groups, health, and family responsibilities. They go on to share what they know during one-on-one visits with families seeking their advice.
Banyua raises and sells animals, but without any real training or understanding of the needs of animals, her results were poor. As Banyua related at the meeting, “I live in the village, keep my animals in an enclosure at night, and take them out to graze during the day. I did not feed them because I thought they had enough to eat out there in the fields. If they lost weight, or died either in the enclosure or out grazing, I didn’t know what caused it. I lost many animals this way.”
A Household Advisor was able to suggest practical solutions that changed her way of life and made her small business more successful. Banyua learned about storing fodder for the animals to eat in the enclosure. If she saw the animals were losing weight, she found that a good practice was to sell one of them to buy fodder for the others. And vaccinating her livestock made a huge difference, too.
Banyua continued, “Now my animals rarely become sick and, since I get them vaccinated, very rarely die due to illnesses. They are no longer dying from hunger, either, because I always have a stock of food and water on hand. I feed them well before taking them to market. They are healthy and nice to look at, and bring a good price. Before, I would sell scrawny animals but never made a profit that way.”
“Not only have I benefited from the advice the Household Advisor gave me, but I’ve also begun showing others how to do what I am doing. People come to me on their own to ask my advice, so I’m a kind of Household Advisor myself. I am very happy and grateful for this Household Advisor program.”
West Africa Program
Led by World Renew and Local Partner Showing Everyone Love