Needs Assessment of Luweya Village Fishponds

Tuesday, July 22th, 2008

Finally I am down to work. On Monday we had a brainstorming session and laid down a work plan outline. What I have proposed to do is conduct needs assessments of the 4 villages in the district of Dedza and based on that I will: 1) write a project proposal to submit to potential donor agencies for funding, and 2) hold a workshop to build capacity and knowledge of fish farming technique for the villages in Dedza and possibly Mangochi if resources permit. I have 12 weeks to do this.

I wasted no time getting the ball rolling (considering the often slow pace of work in most developing countries every opportunity to seize the moment mustn’t be wasted!). Tuesday we set out to conduct needs assessments of 2 villages – Magunditsa and Luweya. Once reaching Magunditsa we learned that a funeral was taking place and doing the needs assessment at that time would not be possible. It was a grim reminder of the paralyzing epidemic gripping Malawi and Africa in general. Sadly, about 50 funerals a week are held in the district of Dedza, most of which are HIV/AIDS related. Not only does this affect the # of able bodied workers in a community but it also places pressure on the time and resources of the community as well. It’s a vicious cycle maintaining poverty as the status quo.

But the day was not a total loss; Luweya was not affected by funerals that day so I was able to conduct a needs assessment in that village. Located only 10km away from the office, it us took nearly an hour to reach the site since the road to the village was in very poor condition, 4x4 vehicles are essential for work in Malawi (as opposed to Toronto)!! When we arrived the village headwoman came to greet us. I was able to greet her in Chichewa and I was wearing a chitenje (the traditional dress for women, basically the African version of a sarong). At the end of the greeting she laughed and said to me (through my interpreter Spriano) that I had passed. Not sure exactly what I could have failed (her respect, trust, welcome, acceptance, all of the above?) but since she was all smiles it was a good thing either way. I am making a genuine effort to learn some basic cultural habits in order to make my work here as effective as possible.

We all walked down a long steep narrow winding path for about 1km to get to the fishponds. Luweya has 3 fishponds run by 90 women and 7 men (the women do most of the ‘unpaid’ work - general labour/housekeeping/child-rearing, while the men go out looking for ‘real paid’ work). The villagers proudly showed us their ponds, all 11m (long) x 9m (wide) x 2m (deep) which were dug using garden hoes. When I asked them what they would like improved they mentioned several things: 1) It was hard to dig the pond with hoes – they would like shovels, 2) Their drainage/flow outlet was a bamboo pole with the centre scraped out – they asked for a PVC pipe, 3) Predators such as frogs and otters were eating the fish – they asked for a sieve to place over the drainage pipe to keep out the frogs and a wire enclosure to keep out otters (they’re current mitigation strategy is to have the village boys come and kill them), 4) They are using their mosquito nets to harvest the fish – they would like proper fishnets instead, and 5) Their most pressing request, however, was to have training in fish farming as they have no technical knowledge of the process, only a rudimentary knowledge of fishing and basic animal rearing.

All these requests are so basic. In Canada the average person would have no trouble buying a shovel, pipe, sieve, fishing net and basic fish farming technique via the Internet, but here it is out of reach for the average villager who lives on less than $1/day. The emotional side of me wants to just go out and spend the $50 for their needs, but the practical side of me knows that I just can’t do that for every village. I need to develop a program with funding and local partnerships in order to build capacity and ensure sustainability, thus being able to outreach to more villages over the long term. Aw the challenge! I wonder if Kiva would put them on their website? Does any IPMPer want to start a microfinance project here with me?

I plan to take it in small steps of course. My next step is to figure out what kind of fish Makumba is. Spriano did not know the English word for it. I suspect it is a breed of tilapia. Argh, if only I had wi-fi in my office I could figure this out right now!! I miss wi-fi sooooo much.