Utete, TZ – Students work together to repair cow banda – 18 Apr 2015

After more than two years in operation, the cow banda at Siasa Primary School was in need of repairs. Parts of the banda had fallen into such disrepair that the head teacher was worried about leaving the cow in the banda overnight. As a result, he had been sending it to other areas to graze.

As a school project, it was important that students got involved in the work and that everything be used as a learning opportunity. There is a core group of 8 students who are most interested in learning livestock skills from the school cow banda. These students took the lead on repairs, but before long many other students came to join. With so many helping hands – including hands from the KCM team – the banda was fully repaired in a day and the cow was able to come back to stay in the banda.

Keeping the cow at the school means that students get the opportunity to learn important life skills by helping care for the cow. Teachers and students are happy to have the cow back and hope to eventually mate and sell the cow along with its calf so they can buy a more productive breed of dairy cow.