
“One Child One Chicken” Project
“One Child One Chicken” is a project initiated by 2020 ARI Graduate Saidati Mulornkwere (a.k.a. Sylab) of Dufatanye, a Rwandan NGO. The project won the Celebration of the World Environment Day 2022 Project Award. Sairab came up with the idea for this project during her training at ARI in 2020. The goal is to teach entrepreneurial skills to the younger generation while also fostering a sense of responsibility.
Each child between the ages of 7 and 10 from a family participating in Dufatanier’s “Village of Hope” program will be provided with one egg-laying chicken. The children, along with their parents, are taught how to care for the hen and how to hatch and raise the chicks.
After five months, each child gives one hen to another child, but the rest are their own. In this way, a synergy of appreciation and compassion is created. Not only that, the children learn how to sell eggs and save money. When the scale of the project is expanded and the number of children reaches 20, they are given a hut.
To make sure everything is going well, the Dufatanye staff checks in once a month to see how the hens are doing, how the work is progressing, and if the children need any help. Occasionally, problems such as illness or theft may occur. Also, some families cannot financially afford to feed the chickens. In such cases, Dufatanye offers part-time jobs to parents in exchange for new chickens and food.
One child who participated in the program said, “The chickens gave me eggs. One child who participated in the program said, “I was able to sell the eggs that the chickens produced, which was a big help. It allowed me to earn money to buy pencils and books for school.”
The new children also thank the child who gave them the chickens when they receive them and look forward to giving them to the next child.
<From the Annual Report year 2021 project report>