Thursday 28 February 2013

Our Chicken Coup - A successful model

Chicken Coup 

One of the first projects of micro finance in Naddi was the Chicken coop started by Cecile from france with the support and help of the EduCARE India staff and local partnership of Lata during her international internship program in Middle of 2012. The initial concept was to have a henhouse with chickens and roosters to produce eggs that can sold. The main goal of this project is to help a local woman become more economically independent and self-sufficient. With this project, she can sell the eggs, make a high profit and save the money they would have otherwise spent on buying eggs from the market.

The project started on 21st August 2012, with the arrival of 25 chicks, 19 hens and 6 roosters to the community. The animals arrived courtesy of EduCARE India  - ViKAS Centre - Young Women’s IDEA efforts and MicroEmpowerED’s loan to Lata. After 6 months the hens began to lay. In the beginning we found only one or two eggs per day, but as time went on the hens started to lay more eggs with increasing regularity. Around the 10th march 2013 Lata sold their first eggs. She decided to sell the eggs to the other families in the community. It has been easier for her, and the community is happy to consume eggs from a local, free range production.

Making a new chicken coup for the laying hens >>

Two months after the first egg, after the business has become fully established in the community and has proven to be lucrative, Lata will start to refund the loan for the initial investment. We decided together to apply a 0% interest for the loan. In fact, we aim to apply integrated microfinance, meaning that the returns for the loan will be reinvested into other social empowerment and micro-finance projects.

Elodie Duvivier
Micro-finance intern
France – 2013