And Now For Some Completely Different Sh*t...

In addition to being the neighbourhood of another co-operative we will be working with in northern Rwanda, we are excited to tell you that the picture below is the site of the future Sunzu Village Library/Community Centre and women's co-op that The Guardian Project (parent of TSSH)  is helping to build with Dan & Francis Klinck and a slew of community and TSSH co-operative members!

site of the Sunzu Village Library and Community Centre

 We will be providing the funds for the materials and labour. 

We are also sourcing children's books to stock the shelves and hoping that a certain dear friend of ours, (a most excellent elementary school librarian with the Toronto School Board), will be helping with set-up and training, including a one month stint with us up in Musanze.

The view into the valley below

Jeff contemplates all that will be!

Jeff, Dan and John of Peace with just a small number of the very many kids (and young adults) who will benefit from this project.

We will merely be providing the means leaving all the building to the locals. 

With the best of intentions, all too often, people volunteer to build a house or school while locals mostly stand around watching. We believe a community is best served when as many jobs as possible are provided to them so they can have the dignity of earning a wage for honest labour. 

Our focus is on a hand up, not a hand out.

John of Peace, the Foreman, along with his assistant and Dan, examine the fruits of labour. Everything is done by hand here. The leveling of the land, Gathering and stacking of rocks . No machinery. And the quality of the workmanship is excellent.

As you can see, the retaining wall is up. Next comes the foundation! Expected completion is summer, 2014!

More Sh*t From The Ugandan Field...

Subsequent visits to Kamdini and Gulu were equally insightful and rewarding, even if the project stumbled a bit in Gulu.

Shockingly, we are the first group/project/initiative/whatever to reach out to the somewhat isolated people of Kamdini in over 20 years.

Their gratitude was overwhelming, especially as, in these early stages, they have not yet felt the fuller benefits of this incredible little initiative.

The cooperative leader, a charismatic father-figure, fluent in english, informed us that the cooperative had decided to pool their limited fertilizer to enhance the yield of a multi-acre corn field the cooperative is sharing, thus maximizing benefit.

Discussions of being able to grow excess beans and corn to put aside in case of future drought or crop failure were also very heartening.

We are continually amazed at the insight and cleverness of many of the cooperative members we are working with.

The usual issues of animal health were raised.

These issues are universal, and so we have adapted our sensitization/contract to reflect these realities.

Jeff with 'Sir' a most eloquent and distinguished cooperative leader whose name we could never get our mouths around. Hence the 'Sir". His incredible knowledge of english, as well as his love of order and planning, he attributes to vestiges of British colonial days.

Instruction and amusement...the laptop continues to offer an enriching experience.

happily showing off a some of a good yield of beans...and pride in being able to offer the bagful as a gift to us.

 Connecting with the Women's cooperative in Gulu started out rather disappointingly.  It became very clear, quite quickly, that most of the 100 women who had received goats in the last few months had merely passed the animals on to their family members living outside Gulu.

Leader Grace Arcan (seated on the mat in black t-shirt and black&white skirt) translated back and forth as we attempted to explain that the spirit of the initiative, and especially that the commitment to the contract must be upheld.

Our efforts to facilitate life improvement for these women cannot be used as a free animal grab for extended families that know nothing about The Shit Starts Here or it's mission.

 While all of the women in this large cooperative come from challenging circumstances, the majority of them have the added history of having been 'Bush Brides' (read sex-slaves) for Joseph Kony and his LRA soldiers.

Grace (bottom) and one of Josephy Kony's very own 'brides'

The last thing we want to do is abandon them.

Things are the way they are. How can we move forward and change direction so that the project can be salvaged?

And so began discussions around composting and crop yields. 

Reproduction and nurturing.

Long-term thinking.

We've decided to slow down a bit with further distribution of goats with the Gulu cooperative until a few meetings down the road when we can establish that the project is back on the right track.

Even if the women are choosing to raise the animals on farms outside the town, it must be in keeping with the guidelines established in the contract. 

Still, it wasn't a total disappointment, as some of the women had in fact been upholding the terms of the contract and raising their goat themselves, using the manure to make fertilizer. 

We visited the homes of two of these women, who were both pleased to report a good crop yield even though the composted fertilizer was added late in the growing period

A proud moment for an industrious woman!

Always happy to see tagged animals. These goats are especially young as Solomon had trouble sourcing older ones. The manure is immediate but reproduction will take a while longer.

Hopefully more positive news will come from his particular cooperative in the coming months.

This Sh*t Never Ends...

A short flight from Kigali to Entebbe, and an 8hr challenging drive later, with Solomon, our Manager Of operations, so expertly and thankfully at the wheel, we were in Lira, N. Uganda...but please, let us digress.
Ugandans bud in line, EVERYWHERE!
Traffic is beyond chaotic as drivers create their own multiple lanes causing constant jams, and make high speed passes so close you can hear them whisper.
Potholes in the north are so deep and wide you could bath in them and so numerous that navigating around them is like being on an amusement park ride.
Definitely not for the weak stomached, as one of our volunteers learned the hard way!

Catching up with co-operatives in Barlonyo and  Ober Bar. So far roughly 250 goats have been distributed, and the remaining 200 will be sourced in the coming months. 

It's a lot harder here in Northern Uganda as Joseph Kony and the LRA killed or stole most of the farm animals and many families just don't have the means to start up again. 

In many cases, we've had to truck them in from more distant markets.

everywhere we visit, grandmothers to children, everyone is sooo eager!

The laptop proved a wonderful addition- sharing project related photos...and shots of our kids and grandkids!

Solomon Adiyo, our General Manager of Operations in Uganda leads the meeting with the Barlonyo cooperative leaders. While everything is great, it's not all perfect and we're also dealing with every-day ailments, miscarriage, still-birth, infant mortality and a serious lack of vets. James, the co-operative leader (in the blue shirt) gives us the stats.

Esther (Solomon's wife) and Jeff handing out fruit tree sapplings to take back to the farmsteads for planting in the newly re-energizing soil.

 

 

Unlike Rwanda, composting is a new concept to many in northern Uganda so we're a teaching initiative as well. 

 

 

Showing pictures helps illustrate the concepts. The grandmothers of Ober Bar are eager to learn more.

Off to see the fruits of the Grandmothers' labours

Women are also saying that farming feels less like toil when you have something to show for it.

Hello little shitters!

Twins are always a bonus!

Always a buzz to see our tags!

Proud to show off what will be the best yield of carrots ever! Earlier vegetable harvests were quickly scooped up at market by other women from neighbouring communities who couldn't believe the quality of the crop! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From the right, George, Solomon, Jeff and Esther, discussing the science of the compost pits that are contributing to the robust crop yields.

Sh*t's Hitting The Fan Again...

Sorry for the delay. 
In late September we finally revealed our secret.
After our very own little Summit In The Mountains in Musanze, Rwanda, bringing together Canadians, Rwandans and Congolese,
we were excited and proud to announce 
that we have partnered with Belay Global 
to 
take our shit into Eastern Congo!

Belay will be providing us with the funding to deliver 1,000+ goats to a coffee co-operative run by Gilbert Makelele, operating on the island of Idjwi, in Lake Kivu, near Goma.
The coffee cooperative stretches across 14 territories in the Eastern DRC and is purposely positioned to operative in the "red zones" where there is ongoing conflict among the many conflict groups. The cooperative was started to bring peace and prosperity to the region, providing a positive alternative to rebel fighters, poachers and the economically deprived. 

Essentially "trading conflict for coffee." 

Read more! at http://africanconfidential.com/?p=1238
The co-operative includes struggling farming families, war widows, women who are victims of rape and torture, and ex-rebel soldiers who have laid down their weapons, all hoping to make a better life growing coffee.

And so we have become a peace initiative as well.
Shit really IS changing the world.







watch this video
CPNCK Film 2
http://vimeo.com/73475618




Meanwhile, our heartfelt thanks go out to Elaine Schimer, from Florida, who heard about our initiative while visiting Rwanda earlier this year, and provided the funding to deliver 36 sheep to a small co-operative of Twa- traditionally forest dwelling hunters- who have agreed to leave Volcanoes National Park and take up farming instead.

And, three days ago, we participated in the tagging of over 280 goats for a co-operative near Nyungwe National Park, thanks to some generous donors back home.

jeff is the pied piper!

show me 10 fingers!

connecting name and number

receiving the tag for their sheep

signing the contract

And the next day we met with our next Nyungwe co-operative, an industrious and motivated group who requested pigs, as sheep and goats do not do as well in their location.

Spreading Awareness Of Our Sh*t...

We entered a contest this past summer, to garner some attention for TSSH. Out of more than 350 entries

we were one of 4 finalists!

While we didn't win, thousands of people around the world had a chance to read about us. The feedback was awesome.

MEET RITA RAYMAN—G PROJECT FINALIST
by DANIEL SENDECKI SEPTEMBER 10, 2013     

This week, the Looptail is coming to you live from outside the gates of Costa Rica’s Parque Nacional Manuel Antonio from our first-ever Summit in the Jungle.

Rita and other finalists with G Adventures founder Bruce Poon Tip

Each day, we’re profiling a different visionary whose world-changing ideas earned them one of four spots at the Summit — and a shot at winning $25,000 to fund their vision. Today, we’re proud to introduce Canada’s Rita Rayman.

Rita pitches her Shit

G Project Finalist Rita Rayman, Toronto
The Shit Starts Here

This program has already affected the lives of more than 30,000 people through providing sheep and goats to farmers in Africa. Theye provide sheep to co-operatives of subsistence farmers in order to compost the manure into fertilizer, which in turn increases crop yields. In addition, as the sheep reproduce, excess sheep can be sold for income and life advancement such as health care, educational needs and home improvement. 

Additionally, a stable community helps to guarantee the protection and conservation of nearby parks, forests and wildlife, including mountain gorillas, chimpanzees and other endangered primates. If there is enough food on the table and money to buy cooking fuel, there is no need to go poaching. Potential also exists for other income-generating activities such as milk, cheese, wool, and felt production.
Working with established cooperatives, they provide each farmer with a female sheep as well as males for studding. 
Once the farmer has his quota of females, he returns the next sheep to the project, which is then passed on to a farmer in another cooperative.


It’s like micro-finance, but the currency is sheep, and the loan is interest-free.


They carefully track the number of members we’re working with, as well as the number of sheep being delivered and the subsequent births.
As they gave the initial farmers the benefit of opportunity, so those farmers are now turning around and giving that same opportunity to other members of their community, in other cooperatives, lifting as they rise. 
The cycle perpetuates itself as Rita and Jeff continue to provide new sheep to new cooperatives in addition to those being passed on by previous cooperatives.
"Ours is a love story that’s full of shit"
a simple, transparent, scalable, sustainable community-building, income-generating, conservation initiative that fosters dignity and independence. 

Having already established themselves in Rwanda, Northern Uganda and Bhutan, and knowing that the concept works, they are focusing on moving into Eastern Congo, as well as hoping to establish initiatives in India, Southeast Asia and South America.

Behind the idea: Rita Rayman
Born and living in Toronto, Canada, Rita Rayman has more than 20 years of travel under her belt, “exploring most of this awesome, precious planet and the wondrous variety of people who call it home”. Along with her husband Jeff, she’s also taken notice of the suffering of both the people and the planet, and was moved moved to do something about it on a grassroots level.

Writes Rita:
We wanted to avoid the political and social corruption, as well as the administrative corruption and overhead that we had seen cripple the best efforts of so many seemingly worthy projects in so many different countries. We also wanted to avoid the inflated egos and saviour complexes that arise in so many NGO groups we had encountered. In an age of chaos and change, we recognize that there is no ‘other’. There is only ‘us’—a global family.

Having been long-time fundraisers, volunteers and activists, comfortable on ‘the road less traveled’, and semi-retired empty-nesters, Rita and Jeff founded The Guardian Project foundation, with a mission to facilitate opportunity through direct, grassroots interaction with indigenous peoples, working with them in their journey to self-sustaining independence, and encouraging them to be pro-active participants in community and country. They place special emphasis on the importance of women, as they are the backbone of a healthy functioning social structure. In their work, they “utilize local wisdom and resources rather than relying on western notions and should-isms”.

More Pictoral Sh*t...

100 subsistence farmers, representing the first third of the Kamdini Cooperative, received their goats recently.

As we previously stated, Kamdini is a particularly neglected area near Gulu, on the edge of Murchison Falls National Park and Budongo Forest (home to incredible families of chimpanzees that we had the privilege of experiencing on our last trip in February, 2013).

Facilitating this community's efforts to better their circumstances will help to ensure the conservation of the wildlife inside this forest and park, especially significant as Kony and the LRA decimated the animal population for food and target practice during their terror campaign.

Here are some photos to mark the occasion.

We look forward to seeing many pregnant females when we visit in October.

 

tags ready to be applied to goats' ears

 

Solomon conducts  project sensitization...one last review of project outline

 signing the contract with thumb print

 

 members of the Kamdini Cooperative receiving locally sourced goats

 

 the shit starts here...

High Altitude Sh*t...

We've spread the sh*t to the Himalayas- Bhutan to be exact.

While it's on a much smaller scale, and involving using already present horse manure, we have enlightened the members of Phajoding monastery, it's Lama and a large group of young monks to the possibilities of high altitude farming enhanced by manure as fertilizer.

Thanks to the internet, we were able to send information and links to sites about composting, fertilizer, high altitude farming etc and wire the money necessary to buy initial seeds and rudimentary tools.

Lama Namgay, has introduced regular organic gardening sessions, teaching the monks "the art of composting and an appreciation of nature"

turnips, sprouts and other assorted greens and simple vegetables need a shorter growing season and seem to be able to survive the harsher conditions.

The local government has since visited the project and, impressed with the monks' initiative, gave more equipment and seeds from the list we supplied them.

They have since expanded their vegetable garden.

 We are excited to return, hopefully one day soon.