This week, we held the first two training sessions on business management with the participating families in the communities of Grand Bassin and Terrier Rouge. David, visiting from ISCA in Canada, kicked off the first session with a story of potato farmers in Prince Edward Island who were able to make use of the cooperative model to increase their income and create new sources of livelihoods throughout the potato value chain. Through this story we showed the importance of the families in each community cooperating as a group – working together as a ‘chicken’ family, if you will, through the poultry cooperative.
The second session focused on financial recordkeeping and how to write down income and expenses – two very importance components of any business. Since many of the participants are either illiterate or have received little education, I came to realize that these were concepts that we would need to continuously reinforce and review over the next few months.
I’m excited to be on this educational journey with the families. I’ve already seen the benefits for myself, as I start to gain insight into what training methods work best for different participants including youths, the elderly, the educated and illiterate individuals. I also got a particularly satisfying feeling when at the end of the second session, participants thanked us for the training and mentioned how they could now see the importance of keeping records to make the most of their soon-to-be poultry businesses. A very positive step indeed in our work with the chicken families over the upcoming months!