With funding from the Rotary Club of Bournemouth North and its partner in France, the Rotary Club of Château-Gontier, new training opportunities in agro-ecological market gardening and poultry farming are continuing. After the acquisition of equipment, theoretical and practical training in both market gardening and poultry farming classes began.
In January, Phase 3 of the training in market gardening taught the girls how to set out the beds, the nursery and associated crops in order to observe the rotation system and the different methods of sowing and transplanting. The girls were also shown how to make compost.
Phase 4 was devoted to weeding, hoeing, staking and composting. To facilitate monitoring, a plot was allocated to every girl to enable the trainer to assess the level of knowledge acquired by each one. This practice also improved the accountability of the girls and better maintenance of the plants.
The training in poultry farming was deliberately limited to a maximum of twelve girls per session in order to allow for effective and personalised supervision while at the same time encouraging group cohesion. Given that the composition of the group was made up of literate and non-literate girls, and in order to maximise participation, each module was covered through projected images of texts and accompanied by illustrations.
The literate girls read the texts and the non-literate girls interpreted the illustrations. Afterwards, a debriefing session was held to check the girls’ understanding of the projected images. These sessions were followed by reframing and further explanations by the trainer.
With the chicken house ready and the practical training well underway, the next step will be to order the chicks and put them in the house. This will enable the girls to understand the importance of hygiene and vaccination in this phase.