Ngara, TZ – Saving and record-keeping help families invest in chickens – 4 Dec 2015

Three families in Ngara have started a chicken project together by saving money, selling vegetables, and keeping careful records of it all. They hope their three chickens and chicken coop supplies is the start of a continuously growing business.

The ABT, BB, and ETB families started an organic vegetable garden together on September 1, 2015. Soon they were expanding the scope of their organic activities by adding six beds to their garden and using organic growing practices to grow tomatoes.

In the three months since they started their garden the families have saved income from selling excess vegetables and kept careful records of their sales. This made it easy for the families to identify the income value they were receiving from their garden and decide how to invest that income together.

After two months of harvesting the families had sold 22,000 TZS (US $10.50) of vegetables. They decided to purchase three chickens for a total of 17,000 TZS (US $8.11) and to keep 5,000 TZS in savings for the project. The families also collected wood together to begin building a chicken coop.