Hello blog,
I think I’m still dreaming. I just woke up from a dream where I went to live in a village in rural Tanzania for two months. I remember lots of goats, people, and orphans. And wait, when I woke up, I found this on my computer…
Conducted for the Programme for Agricultural and Natural Resources Transformation for Improved Livelihoods (PANTIL), this research endeavour was aimed at improving upon a dairy goat project for orphans in the villages of Nyandira and Ndugutu in Mgeta, Tanzania. Over a period of six weeks, I collected qualitative data using an action-based research approach in hopes of catalyzing a successful implementation process. The results indicate that the orphan-goat project can provide both immediate and enduring assistance to the orphans; however, the project needs much more community support. At the end of my fieldwork, many stakeholders have agreed upon establishing institutions to ensure a fair, accountable, and efficient process of distributing benefits from the project to the orphans. Concrete short- and long-term goals and a timeline for implementation are set. Financial sustainability is found to be possible without additional funding. Finally, risks and corresponding mitigating strategies have been discussed with the project steering board so that future problems can be anticipated and avoided.