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To Market, to Market
By Elizabeth Elango
We could hear the voices of the women singing for miles before we got to their meeting room. And as we get closer we begin to decipher the words of their song, which they are singing in French:
Call, call, call HPI.
If you need goats, call HPI.
If you need pigs, call HPI.
If you are poor call HPI.
Just call, call, call HPI.
The women are members of GIC de Mva'a, a Common initiative Group located just a few hours outside Yaounde, Cameroon's capital. They are a Christian group of women, which traces its origins as far back as 1955 with the Catholic church. A few years ago the government started requiring that all groups that are coming together for economic purposes be registered with the government as Common initiative Groups. This would make them easier to identify and easier for the government to provide them assistance.
The group heard of the work of Heifer from neighboring communities and applied for assistance, which they received. They made the decision that they wanted to receive pigs. Some women would be breeders and other would be fatteners. The breeders received three animals each, which they started breeding at maturity to multiply. The fatteners received four animals each, which they each immediately began to fatten. Within a short period of time they had completed their pass-on obligations to another group in the community. And when that was done they began to reap the full financial benefits of their animals.
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Mama Ngono
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Mama Madeleine Ngono is one member of the group who opted to be a fattener. She received 4 animals, which she feeds patiently every day with over-ripe pears, cassava peels and plantain peels which she would otherwise have discarded from her kitchen. The animals grew quickly. Within six months the small piglets that had been worth $40 each when she got them when she got them were soon worth $160 each. She was beginning to earn an income. Mama Ngono says as the animals grew her worried began to fade away. She no longer stayed up nights worrying where school fees for her children would come from, or medicines for when they were sick.
Since she received her initial placement of animals Mama Ngono has gone through six markets cycles, selling 15 animals in total. “It has been hard work,” she admits, “but it has been well worth the effort.”
A lot goes into managing such an enterprise. For the women who are breeders careful attention and record keeping needs to be taken to avoid in-breeding. And thanks to the training they received before the animals they have been successful in doing that. As for the women who are fatteners, there is a lot of skill needed to make sure that they get fair prices when the animals go to market. For this the group decided to train their most shrewd, most powerful members to negotiate market prices. They make sure that when an animal is sold they make a profit of the investment they'd made in feed and veterinary care. So over time market prices have become less and less of a problem.
All the women in the group echo the same successes as does Mama Ngono, who shows us her home, newly plastered with concrete. For her, it is a vast improvement from the mud brick structure that once stood there. Her new income source is enabling her to take up other ventures, like growing cocoa and vegetables for sale. She smiles her gap-toothed smile as she tells us all these. And her friends join her in continued celebration and jubilation.
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