Improvement of livelihoods of the rural poor through education on health management and marketing of free range local chickens. (360G-Wellcome-079358_Z_06_Z)

The aim of the project is to use education on matters pertaining to keeping of local free range chickens to improve livelihoods of the poor poverty alleviation and economic empowerment of women and the youth.The activities include educating the animal health practitioners and chicken keepers in the villages in general aspects of management, disease prevention and marketing. Educational resources, formal training, radio, community meetings, drama with participatory approach will be used to transfer knolwedge to the target groups. The project tries to achieve creation of skilled enterprising chicken keepers who are backed with reliable animal health service providers. Forty-five veterinarians and 60 Village animal health service providers, will be updated on aspects of raising free range village chickens. 270 villagers (predominatly women) will be trained by the project on management, disease prevention and marketing of free range village chickens.The veterinarians will be selected from the 5 geographic zones of the country, while village animal health service providers and chicken keepers and will come from three regions, Morogoro, Tanga and Coast region of the Eastern zone. Community meetings and drama programmes will involve project members, animal health practitioners, contracted drama groups and village chicken keepers, with a target of reaching 15,000 people in the villages. Developed radio programmes on chicken keeping will be aired throughout the country.