Rolling
Summary:
0. We start in Cameroon.
1. We are going to the pig business for the scholarship.
2. We are pairing a kid with a pig. The starting number depends on Jesse's interviews. The kid will be taking care of his/her pig.
ETA: January 2006. Funding is ready. Software to track funding performance will be worked on.
Jesse: à Dschang, Cameroun says:
dody i think they're $100-$200 but i'll give you more specific numbers tomorrow. i'm in yaounde for a few days so i'm connected.
dodyg (silverkey) says:
ok
dodyg (silverkey) says:
do you guys have western union?
Jesse: à Dschang, Cameroun says:
yes
dodyg (silverkey) says:
do you have an address?
Jesse: à Dschang, Cameroun says:
yes
dodyg (silverkey) says:
send me your address and local western union
Jesse: à Dschang, Cameroun says:
ok
Jesse: à Dschang, Cameroun says:
are you at work right now?
dodyg (silverkey) says:
yup
Jesse: à Dschang, Cameroun says:
keep working... i'll give you some useful information tomorrow
dodyg (silverkey) says:
ok
dodyg (silverkey) says:
do you actually know some small farms
dodyg (silverkey) says:
that can make use of the cow/
Jesse: à Dschang, Cameroun says:
the people in my area farm pigs
Jesse: à Dschang, Cameroun says:
the terrain is too hilly for cows
Jesse: à Dschang, Cameroun says:
also cows usually have to be herded into a big city to be sold
dodyg (silverkey) says:
hmm..let's invest in pigs then
Jesse: à Dschang, Cameroun says:
yes i was going to suggest
Jesse: à Dschang, Cameroun says:
there is also catching on here the taming and eating of cane rats
dodyg (silverkey) says:
wtf?
Jesse: à Dschang, Cameroun says:
but if you want to have a project that i can personally supervise, it's best that it's pigs
Jesse: à Dschang, Cameroun says:
yeah people eat wild cane rats
Jesse: à Dschang, Cameroun says:
in fact they prefer them to pig or cow meat
dodyg (silverkey) says:
how much money can you make
dodyg (silverkey) says:
out domesticating cane rats
Jesse: à Dschang, Cameroun says:
they sell for about five dollars apiece dead
Jesse: à Dschang, Cameroun says:
so it's a small deal
Jesse: à Dschang, Cameroun says:
but a child's school fees are fifty dollars a year
Jesse: à Dschang, Cameroun says:
piglets are about thirty dollars each and a fatted pig earns about one hundred dollars when it is butchered
dodyg (silverkey) says:
how long does it take
Jesse: à Dschang, Cameroun says:
i think they mature in six months if they're kept in cages, ten months if allowed to roam
dodyg (silverkey) says:
damn, that's low margin
dodyg (silverkey) says:
10 bucks per month
Jesse: à Dschang, Cameroun says:
right
Jesse: à Dschang, Cameroun says:
but keep in mind that people aren't really involved in the cash economy as you imagine it
Jesse: à Dschang, Cameroun says:
you can live without ever using money
Jesse: à Dschang, Cameroun says:
and live well at that
dodyg (silverkey) says:
let's say we want to enroll 10 kids
Jesse: à Dschang, Cameroun says:
the reason people have to start using money is to send children to school
dodyg (silverkey) says:
to school from the profits
dodyg (silverkey) says:
how much etc
dodyg (silverkey) says:
do we have to generate
dodyg (silverkey) says:
from the farms
Jesse: à Dschang, Cameroun says:
school fees for one year are a bit more than fifty dollars a child
Jesse: à Dschang, Cameroun says:
i would suggest that you give partial scholarships, like pay half
Jesse: à Dschang, Cameroun says:
i mean account for generating half
Jesse: à Dschang, Cameroun says:
most already have an income from cocoa farming, but the money doesn't stretch too far, cocoa prices have been dropping
dodyg (silverkey) says:
is the pig market price stable?
Jesse: à Dschang, Cameroun says:
the cost of a kilo of pork meat hasn't changed for about a year in my village, so they have told me
Jesse: à Dschang, Cameroun says:
but pigs can be sold in surrounding markets
dodyg (silverkey) says:
we can start both ways
dodyg (silverkey) says:
the pigs and the partial
dodyg (silverkey) says:
scholarships
Jesse: à Dschang, Cameroun says:
the price can vary depending on demand, how many funerals are pending
dodyg (silverkey) says:
and find a way on how to make it self funding afterwards
Jesse: à Dschang, Cameroun says:
ok
Jesse: à Dschang, Cameroun says:
well pig farming is already self sufficient in the village, so all of the groundwork is laid
Jesse: à Dschang, Cameroun says:
everyone knows how to take care of a pig and there are always pregnant pigs
Jesse: à Dschang, Cameroun says:
it would just be a matter of finding a serious child to take care of the pig
Jesse: à Dschang, Cameroun says:
the child getting scholarshipped would take care of the pig, i imagine
dodyg (silverkey) says:
hmm..that's a good idea
dodyg (silverkey) says:
one child one pig?
Jesse: à Dschang, Cameroun says:
i imagine. a family usually has more than one child, and they can build the stables to hold several pigs
dodyg (silverkey) says:
how much is a cost to a pig outside labour
Jesse: à Dschang, Cameroun says:
it's just a matter of me investigating to make sure that there are families that would like to raise pigs but can't afford the initial investment
Jesse: à Dschang, Cameroun says:
you can feed them grass and scraps
Jesse: à Dschang, Cameroun says:
grass can be cut down for free
Jesse: à Dschang, Cameroun says:
the expensive thing is the wood and bamboo used to construct their stable
dodyg (silverkey) says:
i imagines many kids will share the responbislity
dodyg (silverkey) says:
of a central
dodyg (silverkey) says:
stable
Jesse: à Dschang, Cameroun says:
well stables can't get too big because the pig shit becomes a health hazard if there are too many of them
dodyg (silverkey) says:
ok
dodyg (silverkey) says:
can you factor in the cost of stable
dodyg (silverkey) says:
etc
dodyg (silverkey) says:
so that there's a figure
爱新觉罗 Jesse: à Dschang, Cameroun says:
yeah
爱新觉罗 Jesse: à Dschang, Cameroun says:
to be responsible i'll need to do a proper feasibility study
爱新觉罗 Jesse: à Dschang, Cameroun says:
interview people to make sure they'll take the responsibility
爱新觉罗 Jesse: à Dschang, Cameroun says:
check nearby market prices
dodyg (silverkey) says:
get the budget first
dodyg (silverkey) says:
so that i can work on the money side
dodyg (silverkey) says:
and ideally
dodyg (silverkey) says:
you will receive a certain amount of money
dodyg (silverkey) says:
before the interview goes on further
爱新觉罗 Jesse: à Dschang, Cameroun says:
ok
dodyg (silverkey) says:
hmm..
dodyg (silverkey) says:
on the other hand
dodyg (silverkey) says:
we only need 2 kids
dodyg (silverkey) says:
or something
dodyg (silverkey) says:
to start
爱新觉罗 Jesse: à Dschang, Cameroun says:
exactly
dodyg (silverkey) says:
a kid and his/her pig
爱新觉罗 Jesse: à Dschang, Cameroun says:
i'd like to find out how many kids are not attending school because of money
dodyg (silverkey) says:
yup
dodyg (silverkey) says:
a kid and a pig
dodyg (silverkey) says:
I can sell that
爱新觉罗 Jesse: à Dschang, Cameroun says:
yeah
dodyg (silverkey) says:
and we can put up their pictures
爱新觉罗 Jesse: à Dschang, Cameroun says:
certainly
dodyg (silverkey) says:
ok; let me know
dodyg (silverkey) says:
the turn around from your budget to money transferred will be 2 days
dodyg (silverkey) says:
so whenever you are ready
爱新觉罗 Jesse: à Dschang, Cameroun says:
that's incentive
爱新觉罗 Jesse: à Dschang, Cameroun says:
i'll be away from the village until january 2nd
dodyg (silverkey) says:
yeah, this will be next yera
爱新觉罗 Jesse: à Dschang, Cameroun says:
yeah
dodyg (silverkey) says:
silverkey will be doing the start up funding
爱新觉罗 Jesse: à Dschang, Cameroun says:
then from there i have to wait for the weekend to use internet in dschang
dodyg (silverkey) says:
and once it gets rolling
dodyg (silverkey) says:
i think there will be enough of young people
dodyg (silverkey) says:
attracted to the idea
爱新觉罗 Jesse: à Dschang, Cameroun says:
yeah
爱新觉罗 Jesse: à Dschang, Cameroun says:
they'll be surprised about how things work in the village
7 Comments:
dody, sounds like a good start. will be interesting to see what the kids say..probably quite unusual what you are doing.
also be interesting to see what kind of accountability you can bring in.
good luck.
we are trying to do something unusual to see if it works; a lot of organization can do the usual thing so much better already.
Another thing Adam, I finally read your comment on the original genesis.
It's a good idea but what you propose is hard to bootstrap, not without a significant investment of time and money or a significant number of people.
Right now I just have to deal with Jesse and the scope is limited (probably sending 10 kids to school at least next year)
I think we can only realize what you propose once we get this pig rolling. After we overcome the inertia of starting something new, we can add anything more ambition to the soup of things we can do.
i agree. once you start you can bring some experiential knowledge to new ideas.
however its worth noting that there are a lot of people out there with time that they do not know what to do with, skills that they underestimate how useful they could be and a desire to make a difference.
But people are lazy. If an easy way could be found to link these people's skills up then you have the people. I know other organisations do this, but they do it through online matching/volunteering systems. These fail. It needs 1 person to organise something, invite 15 people who are relevant and 10 of them will say yet. this is the power of a nomad network -the connection (human touch).
China has thousands of NGO, mostly desparately lacking in any kind of bsiness acumen and thousands of skilled managers; but no-one yet has tried to match them up properly... i imagine other developing countries also have this kind of problem
anyway, just brainstorming out loud!
oh and i respect you for breaking the human laziness problem by making the first move and by starting the ball rolling. well done.
in fact, the pigs which now exist in my village were introduced with assistance from a group called heifer international about four years ago. i suggested them to dody because the people already know how to raise them and where to sell them, some just may not have the startup money. laziness is often the perception that change implies risk. in these parts you can expect even the simplest project to be about 50% or more contingency, so it's very easy to get in over your head with a new thing. a swiss development consultant here told me they now only pay contracts on a results basis; too often the money gets stolen or eaten up on unpredicted costs.
i second adam's props to dody for getting the ball rolling. heifer international is a pretty good organisation. I've been to their headquarters in arkansas or oklahoma - they started the - 'give someone 5 dollars and feed them for a month, give them a cow and feed them for life' idea.
i can't wait to see how this comes along.
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