Mt Kilimanjaro, TZ – Denstone students help families along Path to Self-Reliance – 30 Jul 2018

12 students, 2 teachers, and 1 True Adventure leader spent 3 days and 4 nights working with Lishe Bora and staying at Lishe Bora’s eco-farm campsite. The group did both hands-on project work and tours to learn about locally-run development initiatives. During their project work the group completed projects including:

• 3 trenches for family water connections
• 3 family organic vegetable gardens
• 3 compost piles
• 1 demonstration garden with coffee, bananas, and vegetables intercropped

In addition to the hands-on work, the group also took part in tours and meetings including:

• Lishe Bora “Pathway to Self-Reliance” tour which includes community run water project, demonstration compost production and vegetable garden, and visits to family organic vegetable gardens.
• VICOBA microfinance group meeting
• Coffee production and processing tour

Lishe Bora team members and families are grateful for the support Denstone students and community provided. One of the developments they are most excited about is the demonstration coffee, banana, and vegetable garden at the eco-farm. They will learn important lessons from the operation of this small trial garden. The lessons learned will benefit Lishe Bora as they develop their farm to earn income and improve financial self-reliance.

Denstone’s work will also benefit families as Lishe Bora is able to take lessons learned at the eco-farm and share best practices with the community. Combining vegetables, coffee, and bananas fits well with local farming practices. Most families in the area grow coffee as a cash crop and bananas as a staple crop. Learning how to efficiently and effectively intercrop vegetables will provide value as families their children’s nutrition while maintaining income from cash crops and calories from staple crops.

Denstone students also offered ideas to help Lishe Bora improve the guest experience at their eco-farm. The group’s suggested that road repairs should be a first priority for Lishe Bora so that guests could take vehicles all the way to the property without having to walk. Lishe Bora plans to begin researching road repair designs so they can propose repairs for their 2019 budget.