A Much-Needed Breakthrough

Over one year and countless capacity building activities into my service, I couldn’t help but breathe a deep sigh of validation today when I felt like the farmers we are training had a breakthrough. One of the most challenging aspects of being a Peace Corps volunteer (or, I would guess, working in any sort of grassroots development) is the lack of tangible and noticeable positive results and changes. For the past year, I have been involved in a chicken project working with rural resource-poor farmers to develop indigenous chicken rearing as a business, and to improve the farmers’ involvement and realized benefits along the value chain.

The project started by equipping service providers with technical information to train farmer groups on raising chicken (vaccination/disease control, proper housing, feeding methods, etc). From there, we have trained the service providers on collective marketing so they can encourage groups to come together to sell their chicken, increasing bargaining power and market access. Currently, we are training group-selected traders on business and negotiation skills so they can better represent the farmer groups at the market – gather accurate market information, ensure quality control, arrange transport logistics, keep proper production and financial records, and source viable markets.

This morning marked the beginning of the second day of the 3 day training and I opened with a workshop on Identifying Markets and Gathering Information. The traders were given a hypothetical scenario, using real coastal towns but fabricating prices and transportation information to the markets. Given four potential markets at which to resale the chickens, the traders had small-group discussions to determine the most viable market. Upon calling up the first person to present what was discussed, I was pleasantly surprised and extremely relieved when the recap of the discussions went far above and beyond my expectations. Not only was the financial viability of the various markets calculated and discussed, but the advantages and disadvantages of each viable market were fleshed out… All without much prompting on the part of the workshop facilitators.

From there, we changed the workshop up a bit, fast-forwarding through issues that are apparently already well understood to the traders. This is the first time in my year on this project that I felt a strong sense of confidence in the proactive attitude of the training participants – and it instilled a hope in me that this project will not only find a sustainable footing in the next year, but also make a positive difference in the lives of those involved.

While it may seem hopeless or pessimistic that this is the first major breakthrough in my work over the past year and that something so simple can spark such confidence in me, I do not discount the weight of today’s events. As anyone who has worked in development can understand, it’s the little victories that mean the most because only they can add up to the larger successes. As one Kenyan so aptly put it, “Development is not a mass movement.” I am hopeful that this training reflects a small shift for the developmental aims of the project and individuals involved.