Tag: chickens

Lots of chickens!

The chickens are growing and students from Bright Futures Secondary School are learning skills by helping to care for them.

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Sarah’s blog 1/11/24

How is it the 1st of November already? So much happening, so much to do, but some great results are starting to show.

Levison sent this video yesterday of Martha and Asante helping to care for the chickens (chooks). This is the great thing about having projects like the chickens, pigs, goats and all the crops. They can be used for education as well as becoming income generating projects.

Agriculture is a core subject in the Malawian curriculum and students are very much hands on with projects during their practical lessons. They are learning skills for life. Many people in Malawi, grow crops or keep a few animals (if they can afford to) to supplement whatever other income they have. So students at Bright Futures Secondary School will have the skills they need to be able to be growing their own crops and keeping chickens, pigs or goats and they and their families will hopefully have a brighter future!

The incubator is working well now that it has it’s own solar power supply. However, the hen house needs an extension. If eggs were put in the incubator every day each small batch of chicks, hatching after 21 days, will need a separate area from the other chicks. This will enable them to grow safely and allow their progress to be monitored closely, including knowing which chicks have been vaccinated and when. So it is proposed that an additional room, like the one seen in the video, is built to accommodate more chicks and allow the incubator to have regular batches of eggs.

Here is the link to our project on DonorSee https://donorsee.com/project/25321?share=1 or you could email for bank details if you’d like to make a donation contact_us@changinglivesmalawi.com

Enjoy the video and thanks to everyone who has supported this project already. Together, we are Changing Lives (in) Malawi. Thanks, Sarah x

The New Chooks

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Sarah’s blog 23/7/24

Levison has been trying to buy trays of fertilised eggs to put in the incubator now that the incubator has its own uninterrupted solar power supply.

Who knew that fertilised eggs would be in such high demand… there is a waiting list… which Levison has his name on. In the meantime, there are some new additions to Holligan’s Hen House. Hopefully, once they have settled then there may be eggs to put in the incubator and chicks to hatch.

The hen house was named after my husband Stuart’s late aunt and uncle who generously helped to fund the building of Holligan’s Hen House.

This was one of the small projects that was successfully funded via DonorSee and we are very grateful to the people who helped fund the project. Please could you have a look at our other small projects that are on the DonorSee site? There might be one that you could spare a few £££ towards.

https://donorsee.com/project/24114?share=1 is for seeds and sweet potato vines for the students at Bright Futures Secondary School to grow. Agriculture lessons are a core part of the curriculum and they want to grow their own food.

https://donorsee.com/project/24111?share=1 is for the fundraiser to help five ladies who are living in extreme poverty and have health issues to start their own agribusiness. They have 50% of the money so can we help them raise the rest?

https://donorsee.com/project/23502?share=1 This one is to help feed the hungry preschool children at Bright Futures Nursery. There are several other projects so please do have a look to see ways your money can really make a difference.

Thank you for reading and supporting us to help some of the most vulnerable children and young people (and their families) in rural northern Malawi. Together we can continue Changing Lives (in) Malawi, Sarah x

https://videopress.com/v/U9ZRsfI7?resizeToParent=true&cover=true&preloadContent=metadata&useAverageColor=true
New arrivals at Holligan’s Hen House

Chance is a hardworking agricultural supervisor.

68 baby chicks!

great news – 68 chicks have hatched!

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Sarah’s blog 14/07/23

A while ago, Lochlie Construction generously donated money for an incubator to be bought.

Electricity has been so sporadic that it meant the incubator wasn’t able to be kept at the proper temperature so eggs didn’t hatch.

The incubator was linked up to the solar power kit that we sent on the last container and we thought that there would soon be lots of chicks hatching. Nothing is ever straightforward though. A few batches of fertilized eggs were bought but Levison ended up asking for a refund as none of these hatched.

So last month a few eggs were gathered each day until 103 had been placed in the incubator. Thankfully, 68 of those have hatched. They need to be kept warm until they have grown a bit bigger and, hopefully, they will all survive.

This is such amazing news and far bigger than just 68 chicks successfully hatching. Here are some of the reasons we are all so excited about this good news story;

  1. more eggs can be hatched each month in the incubator
  2. some of the chicks can be sold as a regular income for the Foundation
  3. some chicks will be kept to increase the amount of ‘chooks’ in the Foundation flock.
  4. The Foundation flock will, when big enough, be able to provide eggs for sale bringing in extra income. Eggs and (occasionally) chicken will be able to supplement The Feeding Programme.
  5. Hopefully, there will be employment opportunities created once the number of chooks increases.
  6. There is a possibility that vulnerable families could be given a couple of chooks, meaning they would have their own eggs helping them to feed their families.

So this is just the start and we need to keep our fingers crossed that these chicks survive and the next batch are successfully hatched in the incubator too. This is one of the ways that The Foundation will start to become self-sufficient. They are proud and clever people. They don’t want handouts. They just need helping hands just now as things are so difficult and malnutrition is rife. Let’s hope this is the start of a brighter future.

This chicken project is going to take a long time before it starts making a difference. The feeding programme is providing 500+ hungry orphans with a substantial meal once a week. Some children are walking from up to 20km away. No one is feeding children in schools in this area. We need your help to help us continue the feeding programme as prices continue to rise. Can you commit to £5 or £10 per month please? Our bank details are Bank of Scotland, Changing Lives Malawi, A/C 21081462, S/C 80-22-60 and use the reference ‘feeding’ please. Your help WILL make a difference to hungry, malnourished children. Thank you for your continued support, Sarah x

Appeal for help to feed 500 vulnerable, malnourished children

Please help the Kasonda children

Building an extension…for the chooks

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Sarah’s blog 28/03/22

Back in October, we had a fundraiser in Strathblane, with an exhibition and sale of the beautiful paintings by one of our trustees, Christine Cresswell. She has very generously donated all proceeds from the sale of her paintings, prints and cards to our charity. This is ongoing, not just from that day, so we are very grateful for her talents being used to help us. There is a link to her facebook page on this website and I will also do a blog highlighting her paintings soon.

The money from the fundraiser was agreed to fund the building of an extension to the existing hen house. The rainy season was obviously not the best time to start this project so the builders have been on site this last week now the rains are becoming less frequent. A few of the young people have volunteered to help with ferrying bricks for the builders and you’ll see Maria Chizumira in one of the photos. Maria was on holiday from first year at Chisenga Secondary School.

We look forward to being able to bring more photos of the finished hen house and also photos of the new residents….maybe we might even have some Easter chicks? Thanks for reading, Sarah x

Don’t count your chickens before they are hatched!

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Sarah’s blog 13/10/21

We use this phrase a great deal…about lots of different things. However, today’s blog is about chickens and eggs!

We had a generous donation from Lochlie Construction Group in Glasgow. An incubator was bought with this money. 100 eggs were placed in the incubator and it takes about 21 days for the chicks to hatch. Out of the 100, only 34 hatched. However, that is 34 more than previously! Also there had been a lot of power cuts recently which meant that the incubator’s temperature dropped for long periods of time. Ideally, it would be good to have another form of power as a backup for the incubator. It’s all been cleaned out ready to start again with more eggs. Everyone loves photos of little chicks so here they are looking very cute. Once numbers build up, some can be sold to bring in an income for the foundation. Also some can be gifted to the most vulnerable families enabling them to become more self-sufficient. It would be wonderful to have a paying it forward scheme whereby, once a villager’s flock starts to increase, they give away the same number of chicks that they had been gifted. Enjoy the photos. Sarah x

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