Life in a Kenyan village is very different from the life that I am used to back home in Europe. One great difference is the shopping opportunities. Back home I had everything available from big supermarkets to specialty shops just a few minutes walk from my home. At my new home in the village of Uhuru, I face completely different possibilities. Read More
For the past two weeks, I have as the new intern been joining Momentum’s field officers at the farmer groups’ meetings. One thing that shines through at every meeting is the farmers’ strong interest in being part of these groups. And right now many of the groups are even experiencing that new farmers are eager to join. Read along to get a glimpse of Momentum’s work with farmer groups. Read More
How much is 300 Danish kroner actually worth?
Back home in Denmark this amount is very small and does not make any promise towards improving your life. At best it will buy a piece of clothing, or maybe pay a monthly phone bill. However, in Kenya, that amount of money can help building a future for an entire family, through cooperation with Momentum Trust. 300 Danish kr. Is what it takes to grow ¼ of an acre with maize in Kenyan in order to feed their families for the next half a year.
The first time I have met one of our farmers, whose maize had grown strong and tall, even taller than me, at 2.01 meters, I fully understood the potential of the work and impact we accomplish together with the farmers. Read More
I have been living in our little village Uhuru in Western Kenya for almost three months and what I can say now; it is all about how you make the most out of it! You have to be self-confident, go out there, want to change something, want to actively and openly working together with the farmers. Be proactive, be bold, be curious and be innovative and always be open for change, for something new and for the unexpected! You cannot and you do not really plan a day in Kenya. It is dependent on so many factors but the locals say, if God wants it wants it to happen, it will happen! I am still having a different mentality, first of all I do not relate it to religion because everyone is accountable for their own actions, I firmly believe, and being German and having lived in Denmark for the past three years, makes me appreciating efficiency and time-management! I am still struggling with the Kenyan perception of time and being on time or rather not being on time. Everything here is “pole, pole”, (Swahili for slowly, slowly). On the other hand it allows you to slow down more once in a while, coming from a society where everything has to be faster, bigger, wider…
But what is it that I am actually doing here all day? First of all, no day is alike but that is what I appreciate and value in particular! Half of the time I would be in the office doing some administrative work and the other half we are out in the fields to train, monitor, supervise our farmers.
Let me go back in time and share my first day of work in the field with you. It was already an adventure in itself and a great start! I was going around on a boda boda (motorbike) with my colleagues Kevin and Eunice, so three persons squeezed together, driving through the beautiful, splendid and wide nature of Western Kenya, which is very green and fertile! We were going around following up on some overdue loan installments. So I was able to see a lot of the nature, the farms, getting to know my colleagues better and of course also our dear farmers. What I liked especially about it was the positive atmosphere that was predominant the whole time! The farmers welcomed us smiling, we were offered some of their crops such as plums, avocados, mangos and grilled maize – by then I was already in heaven. Even though we were there to collect some money from them, the atmosphere was at no time pressured or distrustful. Even though I could not understand everything, due to the language barrier of the Luo language, I could very well read the body languages and mimics, which was such a beautiful and precious thing to experience! I could really see how the relationship with our farmers is based on trust but of course we are not named Momentum TRUST without a reason! I was glad to sense this positive atmosphere because often you hear about Microfinance institutions pressuring their members too much and creating hostile environments. Luckily, this is not the case for Momentum otherwise I would also not have liked working for them. But because I met Christian already a while ago before actually moving to Kenya and I have met Mia, a former intern and now board member, in person too, I already knew before what a valuable project this is. I was sure I WANT TO BECOME PART OF THIS and I have never regretted my decision a single second (ok maybe very shortly during one of those nights were I was attacked by too many mosquitoes, despite my mosquito net…), my expectations were exceeded tremendously.
Coming back to my first day of work where we moved around to follow up loans, there was this one female farmer who was overdue but just not able to pay back even a little. So Eunice and Kevin were
discussing possibilities back and forth and also trying to understand why she is not able to payback to be able to better help her. In the end, my colleague Eunice bought one of her chickens for herself and thereby repaid part of her loan. So… it was not only three persons on a boda boda together, no now we were three plus a chicken, and trust me, commuting like this is not an unnatural thing here. This already put such a big smile on my face and this deep feeling that evolves from the inside and makes you so unbelievable happy without even being able to find words for it.
On my second day of work I was taken to a training on group dynamics with Eunice! She is an incredible woman, delivering so much enthusiasm and knowledge to our farmers and I can feel and see their prosperous relationship of trust and mutual respect! It was a training for a new group and in the introduction round everyone was asked to share what makes them happy in life and what makes them sad. Every single person in the group of 14 people answered “I like to work hard to make sure we have enough food because I do not like to not be able to feed my family.” And it was my turn and you are speechless because you are struggling what to answer. My kind of “first world problems” cannot be put in any perspective with the people’s life’s here. It made me thoughtful, it made me grateful but it was also the beginning of feeling more and more disgust about our western society being exposed to this mass consume, the over supply of goods, the food waste we create while others are struggling to feed their families.
There are so many things that fulfill me, that enrich me, that nourish this deep happiness inside me. It is the encounter with the people, meeting especially the female farmers, starting to bond with them, sharing experiences and thoughts with them, personally witnessing personally the positive impact we are creating, being part of this amazing team down here, moving around with my colleagues on the boda boda from farmers group to farmers group. In general I love those motorbike rides with my colleagues, it is almost cosy, you enjoy the sun and wind in your face while you are talking about literally everything with them. In general Kenyans are very open about their culture, religion and social issues. Whenever I can I am trying to ask as many questions as possible starting at polygamy (a totally alien topic to me personally) to women rights and their standing in society. So many things are very different from what I am used to especially private and social issues but I am trying to understand their way of living and their society better. However, in general I must say that the Kenyan women and especially our female farmers have become my focus of attention. But I feel they need a focus of attention, they need to be empowered, become independent, to be supported, promoted and lifted from their difficult standing in society. But this will be a blog entry by itself because it is a vast topic!
The work at Momentum fulfills me a lot, so I actually started fearing to return to my life back home, into a life of pure office work, inside all the time… Will it fulfill me as much? Give as much meaning to me, create as much impact? I have tried to put those thoughts to the side again, fully embrace the NOW and to grasp every single second here. Here at Momentum you become part of a great team, you are seen as an equal part of the team, you have a lot of responsibilities but also flexibility in terms of creating your own tasks. We are a great team together, “growing together” – which is our motto for Momentum – as a team but also with our farmer. Personally I also do believe in the wisdom of an African proverb, I recently learnt, which says: “If you want to go fast, go alone but if you want to go far, go together”.
Of course you have to put all your engagement and focus into the project, it is not for a certain product you are working, you are dealing with human kind here every day! And they are so dependent on us, they do trust in us and we have to deliver our trainings, knowledge sharing and farming inputs to them properly and in time. This can stressful during the days of farm inputs distribution and the days leading up to it, it entails a lot of planning and we are responsible for so many lives – in this season for 718 farmers. Thereby you have a certain burden on your “shoulders”, we know, we as Momentum are responsible that the farmers in the long term have enough food on the table and can pay the school fees for their kids, those kids that are our future! You can see it as a burden and to be honest, I have had some restless nights but you can also start seeing it as a possibility, as a gift, to actually make a change happen! I am thankful to be part of this project, I believe there are enough organizations, having a positive cause on their agenda but instead of actually creating a positive impact, they are just wasting money or putting too much money in charity! Charity is not the long term solution! The inhabitants of underdeveloped regions have to be trained and empowered. A strategic fit with their possibilities and surroundings has to be identified and supported to enhance their living standards! They need to become independent and not dependent on charitable deeds!
Verena
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During the past two weeks, we have made a lot of progress. After finishing mobilization this time around, one of our main focuses has been to check that we have all the correct data on all of our farmers before we put in orders. For some of the ‘old’ groups, the data was entered at the end of last year and we therefore had to verify that it had been entered correctly and that changes made had been recorded accordingly. For some of the new groups, we were only in possession of incomplete documents that were missing data or signatures. Nearly all documents are now in order and we have an overview of how much we have to order of the different kinds of seeds the farmers have individually preferred and fertilizer, respectively.
Thursday of two weeks ago, the government announced on the news that it had received the long-awaited fertilizers CAN and DAP, which we are most keen on getting for our farmers. The prices were still significantly lower than the prices the companies we have been liaising with in case the government ran out of supplies before we could order, as it is on a first-come-first-serve basis. Thus, after compiling all the data yielding a total of the quantities we need, Kevin and I went to the Ministry of Agriculture in Siaya. Almost predictably, the procedure of getting the infamous vouchers for subsidized fertilizer had changed from last season and we did not only have to go to the Ministry with our documentation. We were also required to have our documents signed by the sub-county chief of Central Alego and acquire a cover letter from the ward officer. Meanwhile the ward officer authored our cover letter, we went almost all the way back to Uhuru to the chief’s office. At first, he was very reluctant to sign our papers, as four of our newly mobilized groups – roughly a little less than 20% of our farmers in total – fall within West Alego, not Central Alego, i.e. they are out of his jurisdiction, as he put it. We began discussing back and forth, the chief and Kevin in Luo and the chief and I in English, using our best negotiating skills. 10 minutes on, we convinced him to sign and stamp the papers agreeing that we would separate the West Alego groups for next season.
After several what sometimes seems like unnecessary bureaucratic detours, we FINALLY got the voucher meaning that we had ordered fertilizer for all of our farmers. Or we had ‘technically’ ordered it, as Kevin phrased it, since we cannot be completely sure that the quantities we have been ascribed on the voucher will actually be reserved for us. Hoping for the best, we have now begun investigating where to get the best deal on renting a lorry to have it transported from Bondo to Uhuru. We have a few options and once the payment has gone through, we will be able to collect it. With the ordering of fertilizer, we have reached an important milestone!
Looking ahead, our next tasks include ordering of seeds and, subsequently, distributing both seeds and fertilizer once we have it all and have divided it according to what the respective groups have requested.
In Kisumu, we have remained very concentrated on collecting outstanding balances. Two weeks back, we agreed that we would liaise with the chief of Nyahera, the area in which we operate close to Kisumu, in sending out a letter to the remaining debtors with a final deadline for repayment before we would start collecting their collaterals. On our last visit to the Kisumu office a little over a week ago, we visited the chief who confirmed to us that the letter had been sent out and would reach the farmers in question later in the day. A week later, the letter had had a positive effect pressing more farmers to pay their debts. It has been very important for us to minimize the total outstanding balance in Kisumu, as Teresa, who has been managing the Kisumu office, will be joining the Siaya team during the Long Rain season of 2015 in order for us to exchange experiences and learn from our respective procedures at our two offices.
With a new year comes the time for renewal of our business permit in order for us to be allowed to continue operating in Siaya. It required a trip to Siaya and the Parliament building, where we initially thought we could renew it. Once there, we were told that it was in a different building. Upon arriving at the next place, we were again unsuccessful in finding the right place and were given the very precise directions of going to “the place with three buildings”. Going in the direction we had been told to find these three buildings, we asked someone on the way, who told us it was at the Ministry of Agriculture to where we then – again unknowingly wrongfully – headed. The new directions we were informed of finally lead us to the right place at which we were given the message: “the officers are on their lunch break.” Luckily, there were some buildings next door that were open and once there, we realized it was the “three buildings” next to each other. We received the business permit and we are now officially ready for the Long Rain season of 2015!
I arrived in Kenya two weeks ago and I have had uncountable impressions since then. Landing at 3.30am in Nairobi, it was no problem getting to the hotel with our loyal taxi driver allowing me to get a few hours of sleep before attending to a few pre-arranged meetings. In Nairobi, I first met with Momentum’s lawyer to make sure all the documents for setting up a bank account were in order. After getting hold of a Kenyan sim-card in between the two meetings, I met with our bank guy to finalize the bank account, which apparently is a rather bureaucratic and lengthy process. Luckily, the mission succeeded, which makes the management of Momentum’s finances much more organized. The next day, on Saturday January 10th, I flew to Kisumu, where Kevin and Theresa greeted me and drove me to Uhuru. During the weekend, I had some time to settle in and trying to get to know the area a little. I managed to get lost already on Sunday making the mistake of following small paths instead of sticking to the main roads. Nevertheless, I found my way back with some help from some of the locals.
On Monday, we started off with this year’s first Trainer’s monthly meeting. The trainers updated us all on how their groups are doing, how the harvest from the short rains has been and if they are even done with harvesting by this time. All in all, the farmers were satisfied with the yield of the short rain season, as is had rained above average for that time of year. On the more negative side, we were also discussing if some farmers have to be dropped due to failure of meeting deadlines for repayment of their loans or if they do not cooperate and participate in group activities. As a conclusion to the meeting, we agreed that we need to push for the last installments and also collect seed selection forms in order to know how much and which kinds of seeds we have to order for the coming season. During the rest of the week, we have been finishing the second round of mobilization of new farmer groups as part of our goal of upscaling operations in the Siaya area. The mobilization meetings have generally gone well except for one detail, which is difficult for me to get used to coming from a relatively punctual cultural background. We could knowingly be 45 minutes late for a meeting and not a single participant would have showed up. When calling village elders, they said they were on their way and that the other villagers were also coming to the agreed upon venue for the meeting; they just had some other commitments to attend to first. Therefore, we often ended up waiting for people to slowly turn up, not looking like they were in any kind of a rush, and kindly greeting us when they arrived anything between an hour and two and half hours late. I suggested to the other staff that we tell them to be there at noon instead of at 2pm enabling us to be able to start the meeting at 2pm. Regardless of their slight tardiness, we held the meetings and the mobilization result has been successful, although we have not quite reached our maximum capacity yet. There is still room for growth.
After finishing mobilization, this past week has mostly been focused on debt collection and collecting the remaining membership fees from the new groups. Unfortunately, the remaining total debt remains higher than is wishful at this point for some groups and particularly in Kisumu. We will continue to go to the Kisumu office regularly over the coming weeks to make sure we settle as much debt as possible before we close the office for this season. Since we plan to restart operations there again for the short rain season next autumn, we wish to remain with a good image as a serious business in the area and to retain a high satisfaction rate among our farmers.
Our main tasks are currently to collect outstanding balances, begin training sessions of both new and old groups and most importantly, to get an overview of our total number of farmers for the fast-approaching new season in order for us to order farm inputs in the correct quantities. In that regard, we held a field day to show a new seed being introduced to the Kenyan market in order for the farmers to see how well it did. Both the farmers and the company representatives were satisfied after the field day, as it seems a promising seed. With the extended repayment deadline, it remains to be seen which of the farmers who currently still have outstanding debts will be able to repay by the end of this month and thus be eligible to take new loans for the long rain season. This means that we cannot establish an exact number of farmers until the end of January. Until then, we are in contact with government representatives responsible for the distribution of fertilizer and we have also established contact with private suppliers in case the government fails to deliver on time. As of now, we cannot get a direct answer from the government as to when they will receive fertilizer. Hopefully, they will know soon and we do not have to worry about getting enough of the good – and subsidized not to forget – fertilizer.
With the opening of our new bank account, it has been crucial to deposit some of the cash in the office, which we have done meanwhile being at the Kisumu office before returning to Uhuru. Riding on a boda boda (motorcycle) early in the morning with 400,000 shillings under my jacket on the way to Kisumu was an interesting experience. Boda bodas are by far my new favorite means of transportation. It is super convenient and aside from the dust, it is also super fun!
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What do Kenyans eat for Christmas? Did you ever wonder? It is my impression that many Kenyans care much more about going to church during Christmas than they do about the food. But they do eat. Just not following a strict pattern of dishes that must come in a specific order, like many Danes at least do. In Kenya what you eat for Christmas depends on your income level, those who can afford it might slaughter chickens, others eat beef, some eat fish, and whatever you have, it will most likely be served with either rice or chapatis. In Kenya you can find excellent Indian food and some dishes have penetrated even the most rural of Kenyan areas, like chapatis and samosas. But for Christmas almost all Kenyans will drink soda. Drinking soda marks a special occasion here, not the Christmas tree or endless chocolates and candies. Many of our farmers will spend their Christmas evening drinking sodas, but most of them will spend their days working on the farms. Christmas falls during a period of harvest, when the short rain bounty is ready for picking. Some have already started harvesting, most of the beans used for intercropping on the maize fields have been picked, and when you walk along the roadside and pass farms, you’ll see maize cobs missing from the outermost plants here and there. We don’t have little ‘apple thieves’ in Siaya (we don’t even have apple trees) but we do have ‘maize thieves’. A sure sign that harvest time is upon us. This year most of our farmers can look forward to busy Christmas days, because their farms are full of produce. All in all, not a bad prospect.
In the spirit of Christmas, we decided to offer our trainers a little gift.
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As you can see from the photo, they are now equipped to represent Momentum in style next year. Some of them will be doing just that in new farmer groups, those that have been mobilized during the past couple of months. We are in the process of finalizing the mobilization, setting up training schedules and planning for the next season. From January we’ll be operating in two neighboring locations on top of the current sub-locations we were in during the short rain season 2014, and we’ll grow our numbers from the 29 existing groups in Siaya to 40-45 groups.
In the midst of the mobilization efforts we have also been working on starting a fishpond project. The fishponds were mentioned some time ago in another blog post, but it isn’t until now that they have finally been stocked with fingerlings. It is no secret that it is challenging to run a project in Kenya and that becoming financially sustainable takes time. In an effort to speed up the process we have been looking into income generating activities and the choice has fallen upon commercial fishponds. In a matter of 6 to 8 months we’ll be ready to harvest the first Momentum tilapias, a very popular fish in Kenya, and one for which there is always market. The income from the fishponds will go a long way to help cover the Momentum office’s operating expenses. Thinking outside the box can be a very good thing in Kenya, and why not make sure that we can pay our staff based on fish farming?
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On another positive note we held a ‘champion groups’ celebration not long ago. For each season Momentum picks two champion groups, based on how well groups adapt the Momentum techniques, attend training, stay on track with loan repayment and their yield. It is a very simple incentive scheme, where groups are reminded throughout the season that those we commit will get a prize once we close the season.
All Momentum farmer groups from the long rains season 2014 were invited to join us under a big tree in a central village, where we had a chance to give a status on the long rains and discuss the parameters we look at for deciding on champion groups. The idea was to get as many of the farmers to show up and have everyone learn from the best cases. The champion group for the long rains 2014 was ‘Odheyo 2’ Momentum farmer group. No one put more effort into applying the techniques and as a consequence the group on average had a 700% increase in yield from their first Momentum season compared to previous harvests. I hope that warms your heart a little, because here is a case where people truly benefit from being Momentum farmers. The runners up were ‘Segere 1’ Momentum farmer group who also committed to the trainings, the techniques and the loan repayments. The groups were rewarded jembes (hoes) and pangas (machetes) that we hope will serve them well on their farms in future seasons.
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But really it is only when you ask our farmers to pose for pictures that they look like this otherwise they look like this:
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Because jembes can be used for dancing, of course they can.
This will be the last blog post from my time as an intern with Momentum. As we are putting everything in place for the purchase of inputs for the long rains season in January, taking a status on the mobilization and scheduling trainings, the local staff is preparing to go on Christmas holiday and the expats are preparing to go back to Europe. Come January the activities will be back in full swing, most likely the Momentum office will be busier than ever, and there will be a new intern to deliver the ‘mzungu effect’ in Kenya. Mzungu is one word that you will inevitably hear many times a day if you are white and living in Kenya. Wikipedia tells us it is a bantu language term used to refer to people of European descent, and translates roughly into ‘aimless wanderer’, dating back to when European explorers first made their appearance in Africa (and most likely got lost a good amount of times during their wanderings). Children will scream it at you from the roadside and people will refer to you as ‘mzungu’ more often than they will refer to you Mr/Ms, so sometimes you might feel reduced to being just the color of your skin. But your skin color will work wonders for you. Granted, it is not fair, but being white means that you will be associated with investment and development, and more likely than not also with integrity. In turn, this means that a white face can be used to install confidence in farmers, government officials and business partners. As I am leaving my white face will no longer be available as leverage for the Momentum staff, I am taking my ‘mzungu effect’ with me, but I am doing so comfortably knowing that the business Momentum has established now in Siaya and the relationships we have with farmers are both solid enough to withstand a little lack of white.
Merry Christmas,
– Mie
If you have a good (social) business idea, the entrepreneurial spirit it takes to start a new project, and you’re willing to put in the backbreaking work it takes to bring it to life, you’ll still need a little something. You’ll need people. In Momentum, as in any other business, it’s the people who put in their time and effort that make the heart of the organization pump. And still, they’ve never really been introduced in the blog. Sure, you can find their faces on the webpage, but that doesn’t mean you really get to know them. It’s about time you meet the Momentum family.
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First off, here’s Kevin and Paolo. Kevin doesn’t always hug his bag, and it is rare to see Paolo without a cigarette. They must both have been caught unawares… From the very beginning of Momentum, Paolo has been consulted on financial matters, and I’m fairly certain Christian likes to refer to him as a “financial wizard”. He was finally persuaded to move to Kenya and participate in Momentum activities full time, albeit for a limited number of months. There’s only so long a true Italian can go without access to espressos and real tomato sauce – Paolo shrinks his nose at what Kenyans call tomato sauce, which to be fair can best be described as neon red and rather sticky. The eternal career nomad; he is only borrowed by Momentum until Christmas this year, but before he heads on to his next adventure he’ll have done a thorough job of securing that Momentum is on the path towards financial sustainability.
Kevin on the other hand is a local. A true local. He was brought up close to where the Momentum office is located, and both knows and understands this area to a fault. Originally he was recruited as an agricultural expert, which makes sense as he has a degree in agriculture, but it didn’t take long before it became apparent that he also has what it takes to run an office. By now he’s both an agricultural expert and the boss. He keeps saying that by 2016 he’ll make all sorts of grand changes in his life, like giving up ugali (or only eating it once a week, or once a month…his story keeps on changing). In his ‘spare time’ he continues to farm a piece of land along with his mother, and he owns a barbershop. Spare time in Kenya is a completely different concept from what we understand by it in the Western world. Here most employees get up early in the morning to work on other projects before ‘going to work’, whether it’s growing maize, vegetables, processing peanuts or keeping poultry, every waking hour counts. But back to the matter at heart: these two fellows keep the grand overview of Momentum’s activities, and they share the same conviction that things will work out in the end. Maybe not always according to whatever schedule has been put in place, but it will happen. Paolo’s favorite phrase tends to be “we’ll see what we can do” followed by a smile and a shrug, to which Kevin adds, “it must be done, it shall be done, it will be done!” And time and time again Kevin has been right.
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Now, meet Washington. Momentum’s very own field supervisor. The motorcycle is not just for decorative purposes, instead it’s what permits him to move around the area, meet the farmers, inspect the fields, collect loan repayments and assist the Momentum trainers when they need it. His people are from the area in which Momentum works, and while he himself has lived all over Kenya growing up, he insists that the best place and way to make a life for yourself is by farming in his home area. His cousins in Nairobi have a hard time believing (or maybe accepting?) that you can lead a good life if you apply yourself to farming. Washington has a knack for teaching, and a passion for farming. His years spent working as a primary school teaching assistant have made him apt at explaining, and his years spent accumulating knowledge on farming and putting it to use on his own farm ensure that he understands the exact conditions and challenges that the Momentum farmers face. But his own success in farming is also what makes him relentless; if you are equipped with the right knowledge and the right inputs, which is what Momentum ensures, there are no excuses for your farm not prospering. Also, nothing makes him happier than a smooth and easy loan collection, and he believes that the only reason for a man to be weak is a lack of ugali in his diet.
Boys, boys, boys, but what about the ladies? Here’s Eunice. On this picture she is flanked by Washington and Paolo.
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In her capacity as a field manager she is a force to be reckoned with. Sometimes I call her ‘the whip’. With her sharp tongue she will whip any and all farmers into understanding how the relationship between them and Momentum must work, what their responsibilities are and what ours are in turn. The farmers love her, especially those who have had the pleasure of being trained by her, because she knows her stuff. She has years of experience in agricultural community development from various organizations, and puts her knowledge to use in mobilizing farmers for Momentum, working out training material and schedules, and keeping every group on track. She is tough but fair, and she likes to keep everyone earth bound by challenging the ideas that are brought forth by the team in the office. Only when things have been thoroughly scrutinized and subjected to her questions will they be allowed to move forward. She also has two cows. One is called Nyala. And when we’re lucky Eunice brings us fresh milk in the morning.
These are all the people who are fulltime employees. But there are some good people missing still. The way Momentum works with the farmers groups to ensure that they get both agricultural and business skills is to assign each group a trainer, who meets with them once a week. The trainers are semi-volunteers; they spend approximately 2 hours per week per group, and get a small symbolic compensation for their work. They are the eyes and ears of Momentum in the field, because even with a motorcycle Washington cannot be everywhere. Besides giving us regular updates over the phone, the trainers join the team once a month at the office to discuss what is going on in the field. These people are passionate about their communities. Many of them are also farmers and often go beyond the requirements and expectations of Momentum in their work. To me they illustrate the beauty of a community coming together.
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And as if that wasn’t enough there are also some good people working for Momentum in Denmark. While Momentum is on the path towards financial sustainability, we are not quite there yet, which means that fundraising is still necessary. A small handful of people who devote their time and efforts on a voluntary basis are doing most of that in Denmark. They might think that we don’t think of them in Kenya, but we do, and we know that they play an instrumental part in making Momentum a success.
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Then of course there’s Christian. Both part of the Momentum team in Denmark and the team in Kenya. Seen in his right element mingling with farmers on this picture.
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These are the people who are working towards improving the living standards of as many farmers as they can get their hands on while building a sustainable business.
In addition, there is the occasional intern, right now that would be me (in the middle):
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These days Momentum is going through a little growth spurt. Don’t worry we’re not experiencing growing pains, instead we have the pleasure of meeting new faces in the field, when we go out to talk to more farmers in our little corner of Kenya about the possibility of joining Momentum. Of course what I’m trying to say, is that we have officially started our third round of mobilization. For the Momentum team the word ‘mobilization’ describes a very specific process and no questions are asked when it is thrown around in our daily conversations. For you as readers, maybe it warrants a little explanation. In Momentum terms ‘mobilization’ is the process of getting new farmers to join us. We could call it a recruitment of new Momentum farmers. It entails a long list of activities, where the main purpose is to spread information about Momentum, the benefits of joining from a farmer perspective and equally importantly what Momentum expects from its farmers in return.
This week is the first week of a three-week mobilization in which the team is moving around Siaya County to meet farmers who are interested in knowing more about Momentum, and potentially interested in joining. The picture above is from the very first meeting of this mobilization. Each location the team goes to will be visited weekly the coming three weeks. The first week always has the lowest turn-up of people, but as those whose interest have been peeked tell their neighbors about Momentum, more will show up in the weeks to come.
Momentum is truly based in a society where information does not flow freely, and where knowledge is not necessarily shared. Very few can ask Google if they have questions. Even if your neighbor is part of something exciting that may be equally relevant for you, the chances of you getting enough information for your interest to be peeked are sometimes slim. So we use word-to-mouth methods, pass around flyers, and request that local farmers give us 2 hours of their time to hear what we have to offer them. And this is the third time Momentum is going through this process. As an organization working within agribusiness in a country predominantly relying on rain-fed agriculture Momentum moves with the seasons. With the two rain seasons in Kenya, Momentum has an opportunity to scale up twice a year. The farmers we are targeting now will receive their first Momentum farm inputs for the long rains 2015. Still, they become Momentum farmers long before they receive the inputs. The inputs are not worth much without the accompanying training, which the new farmers will start at the end of November.
The fact that this is the third time Momentum is scaling up means that it has now been more than a year since the first mobilization took place. For Christian, the founder of Momentum who is with us in Kenya these days, I’m sure this is an opportunity for reflection. You’ll notice him as the conspicuously white person on the picture above. The fact of the matter is that the past year Momentum and its team has been on a steep learning curve. Understanding how to make a business relationship work with local farmers, how to get them to work in groups, attend training and repay their loans, is complicated. By this third mobilization the team carries with it the lessons learned from the two previous ones. Between the first and the second mobilization some changes were made and more emphasis was put on the loan repayment. Already we are seeing the differences in groups’ willingness to repay. Between the second and third mobilization a major change is the stress now being put on group work. Momentum builds its business model on joint liability for loans, but also on joint liability for ensuring that each farm is planted and weeded correctly – which means working in groups. Hopefully the roughly 130 farmers we are adding to our family will be better mentally prepared to embrace group work.
This goes to show that as small young organization aiming for maximum impact Momentum is also partaking in a learning process. But we have our eyes on the goal, and just to show you what that goal looks like I’m including a picture of a non-Momentum farm versus a Momentum farm. They were both planted at the same time, but we suspect that one of these two farmers will have a significantly better yield…
BILLEDE
Someone recently asked me if there is always something to do when you are working with farmers. My very short answer was: yes. Activities on the small farms of our farmers of course depend largely on the season, and often farming is treated as a part time business because the scorching equatorial sun makes it impossible to work on the farm after noon. But regardless of the season, activities in the Momentum office are many and plenty. This blog will hopefully give you a little window into some of the things that take up our time.
We have finished distributing the bulk of the farm inputs to our farmers now. During the past couple of weeks we have delivered more than 14 tons of CAN – the top dressing for the maize. Last season, it was delivered along with everything else, which resulted in some unfortunate mishaps for certain farmers who confused the DAP, the fertilizer to be used before planting, with the CAN. Hopefully everyone will do topdressing with the right product at the right time this season.
The very last thing remaining for the farmers loan package delivery to be complete are the banana seedlings we included in the packages. Soon they will be ready to leave the nursery and make their way to their new homes at the small farms. There are many advantages to bananas. Besides being nutritious and able to help secure a better diet for our farmers, they are also easy to sell here in Siaya County. In many villages there is a lack of fruit, and on the market in Ouru (which you will find a picture of in the top of this post) the only fresh things you will find are tomatoes, onions and cabbage. Only twice in the last two months has a stray banana seller found her way to our little corner of the world.
If a farmer takes well care of the banana seedling s/he will soon receive, that seedling will grow into a healthy banana tree that will yield bananas 3 to 4 times a year. It is possible to take the banana suckers, the small shoots to be found at the base of the plant, and transplant them to make one plant grow into many. All of the Momentum trainers and the group leaders were gathered for a two day seminar on growing bananas in which the banana expert and owner of the nursery from where our banana seedlings are growing came to visit us. As with everything Momentum does, training is essential. The knowledge of how to take care of the bananas will reach all group members via the group leaders and the Momentum trainers, and for some this will be the start of a very nutritious and profitable banana venture.
Working in agribusiness and with farmers is more than distributing farming inputs. The inputs are worth next to nothing without proper training on how to use them. This goes for all the inputs we provide, not just banana trees. Right now some of the groups who have been with us since the beginning are nearing the end of their training material packages, which means that they have gone through all the agricultural and business lessons set up for them. For us this means that we must consider how to proceed from here. In some groups members have expressed an interest in repeating everything again step by step, whereas others want more. As farmers work within Momentum groups they seem to change their attitudes towards knowledge, and many have been telling me that knowledge is the key to advancing themselves in life. Knowledge is power. At the office in Ouru we are working on developing new training material and drawing up new plans for our trainers and groups to follow to make sure they keep moving in the right direction and stay motivated. The local staff is once again proving their worth by dishing out ideas and drafting manuals on things that farmers can work on without the need for investment, like how to make compost at the farm for the farm.
On a daily, weekly and monthly basis we also have our share of challenges to deal with in Ouru. Loan repayment is among one of our recurrent challenges. To be fair, we have a very high rate of loan repayment, it’s nearly perfect, but that does not mean that we do not have to kindly remind our farmers that we are serious about them paying back their loans. On average only two or three of our groups bring their collective loan repayments to the office without us calling and sometimes going there in person. As a foreigner in Kenya it is striking how new the concept of a loan is to many of the locals. Some locals have been ‘spoiled’ by previous organizations coming and handing out all sorts of inputs for free, and they struggle to understand the benefit to them if they actually have to pay for the services we offer. Those locals, however, tend to not join the Momentum groups. Most of those who do join our groups have seen the impact the hand-out-organizations leave behind when they leave, and they all do leave once their funding is exhausted or cut. In the words of one of our farmers these organizations: “drop people on the ground in the same or even worse state than when they came”. We talk about joint responsibility for development with our farmers when we meet them. We talk about the need for them to repay their loans because that is the basis on which we build our capacity to provide them with inputs for the seasons to come. My guess is that 99% of our farmers understand this aspect of Momentum, but we still see a great difference in the way they work together and in how proactive they are when it comes to repayments. The entire Momentum team, myself included, is convinced that this has something to do with how well farmers work in groups. Working in groups is not something Kenyans are brought up with, so they do not necessarily jump at the thought of being collectively responsible for loan repayment and working on their lands. I believe it will continue to be a challenge for many seasons to come to figure out how the Momentum office can ensure that our groups work together, when it comes to preparing their land, planting and loan repayments.
All of the above are some of our daily activities and challenges. In the coming weeks we will busy ourselves with things such as the development of the loan packages for the long rains 2015 and planning of mobilization of new farmer groups, on top of all of our daily activities.
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