COSITA aimed working on the following strategic objectives:
1: To facilitate community access to formal education, literacy classes, children right and protection (early childhood development program).
Output 1.1: Communities sensitized on children rights to education
Output 1.2: Increased access to formal education for Children/pupils/students from poor and vulnerable communities
Output 1.3: Early learning facilities and services improved.
2: To undertake community based livestock and agriculture development initiative towards poverty alleviation.
Output 2.1: Pastoralist communities are effectively managing allocated grazing land for improved livestock production in their respective areas
Output 2.2: Capacity of village councils, village land and environment committees, traditional leaders and pastoralists enhanced on land rights
Output 2.3: Increased small holder farmers access to quality inputs and appropriate production and processing technologies
Output 2.4: Improved household nutrition and health of women, youth and children
Output 2.5: Increased access of small holder farmers to credit schemes and assured markets
3: To support community water supply systems and good hygiene and sanitation practices
Output 3.1:Water distance reduced and availability increased
Output 3.2:Community health, hygiene and sanitation improved
Output 3.3:Primary pupils and Secondary students’ attendance and performance improved
4: To facilitate natural resources and environmental conservation strategies.
Output 4.1:Improved awareness of communities toward environmental conservation strategies and laws guiding the same
Output 4.1:Improved communities resilience toward climate change and more aware on adaptation strategies.
5: To support gender mainstreaming, women development and policy advocacy campaigns at district/community level that will bring social changes and encourage participating in the self IGA
Output 5.1: The crosscutting issues mainstreamed to organization daily operation.
Output 5.2: Decreased gender based violence and stigmatization on PLHA.
Output 5.3: Enhanced income for poor and unprivileged groups of the society through IGA
6: To enhance COSITA’s capacity to effectively achieve her objective including monitoring and evaluation work.
Output 6.1: COSITA’s governance and management capacity strengthened.
Output 6.2: COSITA capital infrastructure improved.
Output 6.3: Value added to the work of COSITA as her mission is concerned.
PROJECTS UNDERTAKEN/IMPLEMENTED BY COSITA ORGANIZATION ARE AS FOLLOWS:
Before the project Pastoralist Community in Ayamango village were unacquainted of their rights to land but after capacitated on land rights, they decided to prosecute two invaders whom were Mr. Eliezeri Hoti and Mr. Saitoti Lomboy. They invaded the land set aside for animal grazing/pasture a total of 2000 acres whereby invaders took 356 acres of which, Mr. Eliezeri Hoti owns 50 acres but he claimed that 200 acres including 50 acres to be his land. The case is over through court judgment made by District Land and Housing Tribunal in Babati, Land Case No. 9/2014 and 156 acres for Mr. Saitoti Lomboy with Land Case No. 8 of 2014 of which all pieces of land are found within the 2000 acres village grazing land. The villagers together with their village government undertaken law proceedings in the District Land and Housing Tribunal in 2014 Babati to make sure that their land is rescued from invaders.Then, Mr. Saitoti Lomboy and other 44 applicants raised another case in High Court Arusha claiming that 610 acres within 2000 acres to be their land. A case took a long time, but finally in 2015 the village won the case. Even though the invaders have refused to quit the land but the villagers with their governments still proceeds with further steps to ensure the invaders are quitting the land.
Apart from invaders, the remained reserved land which was not invaded the village have managed by dividing into two parts for the rotational grazing (dry season and rainy season). These efforts are adopted by the project to ensure both pastoralists and farmers have sufficient understanding on land rights and to apply them.
Mwenyekiti wa kijiji akimwelezea Afisa Mradi “kesi ilitusumbua sana lakini tunamshukuru Mungu tumeshinda kesi hivi sasa tunafanya juhudi za kuwatoa kwenye eneo hilo japo wanagoma kuwa wanataka kukata rufaa” |
The chairman is thankful to COSITA and CARE for the project since it opened up their eyes and the eyes for village Pastoralists community . On his side, the District Agro-Pastoralists Union Chairperson confessed that he feels very great as he was empowered by the project to deal with Pastoralists rights to resources such as grazing land , livestock routes, cattle trough etc
A STORY OF MWIKANTSI
Mwikantsi village found at Mamire ward is one of 9 villages of the project on Land Rights for Pastoralists for the year 2013/2014, also the village is member of the Agro- Pastoralist Union, the village has a size of 2381 acres and total number of 4910 cows and calves.
There were many successes that happened since the commencement of the project (Pastoralists’ Land Right Project), one of them is awareness on land rights and proper management of grazing land. In 2015, COSITA created awareness on their rights to land, then villagers collaborating closely with their village government decided to open proceedings in the District Land and House Tribunal at Babati, for two invaders which were Mr. Moshi Gadiye (Shauri la Jinai Na.113/2002) and Paskalina Kivuyo (Misc. Appilication No. 25/2005) who generally invaded an area of 27 acres which were reserved especially for pasture, and they turned it for their personal uses particularly for agricultural activities.
The village won the case and returned it to their intended users. However Ms Paskalina did not agreed with the judgment made, so she decided to appeal the case, this case lasted a year from 2014 to 2015 but eventually the village was given the right to own the land.
Due to the nature of civil cases you may find that the cases take long time because applicant may find where there is loop and restart another new case that will take individuals to the court again so people loose different resources in times engaging in different cases.
Until now the area belongs to village in favor of livestock keepers for pastures and likely the area is properly managed case conducted more than one year from (2014-2015).
Village Chairperson said “Tumejitahidi kupambana na wavamizi wa maeneo ya malisho kwa kuendesha kesi mbalimbali na tumefanikiwa kushinda ila wavamizi wamekataa kuachia maeneo hayo ya malisho ila tunaendelea na hatua zingine”. | |
The village leaders were very thankful for the cooperation from COSITA through CARE and other villagers members who contributed to the processes during the case and removal of invaders but still invaders hold the pieces of land and use for their own purposes mostly farming. Pastoralists need more support so that this could contribute to the efforts which are being made towards fighting and protecting their potential resources.
Project Title: Improving Smallholders’ Livelihood through Sesame Value Chain Project phase III Improving Smallholders’ livelihood through sesame value chain phase III is a project funded by Farm Africa through Comic Relief Fund and implemented by COSITA in close collaboration with Babati town district and town councils especially experts from Department of agriculture, irrigation and cooperatives. The project is implemented in 7 wards of Babati district namely; Mamire (Mamire, Endagile and Mwikantsi), Endakiso (Endakiso, Kwaraa and Gijedabung), Galapo (Ayamango, Gedamar and Halu), Qash (Orng’adida, Endadosh and Majengo), Maisaka (Malangi and Kiongozi), Sigino (Imbilili and Daghailoy) as well as Mutuka (Mutuka and Chemchem). Project goal; To reduce poverty through increased household income of 2,000 Smallholder farmers and 20 entrepreneurs in Babati district by June 2018. The project purpose;To sustainably improve production, quality management, and marketing practices and incorporate smallholders into the sesame value chain while at the same time contributing to the COSITA’s specific objective 2, i.e. to undertake community based livestock and agriculture development initiatives towards poverty alleviation. Project implementation results under each specific objective; Objective1: Increased sesame production by 50% in Babati, through increased knowledge and application of effective practices. Outcome 1: Increased production of sesame by 0.5 tons per acre, and increased production of high quality sesame by 50% Mobilization of farmers into farmers business groups (FBGs) and trainings on best practices; to ensure increase in sesame production, COSITA has organized Smallholder farmers into eighty two (82) farmers’ business groups (FBGs) comprising of 2014 members to the time of this report, in which they have been provided with extension services especially trainings on good agronomic practices/ best practices in all stages of sesame production namely; proper farm/ land preparation, use of quality seeds especially Lindi 02 mostly competitive in the market, proper spacing and row planting, timely weeding and thinning, pest management and post-harvest handling techniques i.e. purity and moisture content. Apart from trainings there are also established demonstration plots (18 plots) in the project villages whereby farmers had a chance to learn GAPs in a practically way by attending demonstration days in their respective villages, during the demonstrations farmers were required to participate in all stage of sesame production namely; planting (learn ratios of mixing seeds with sand and row planting), weeding, thinning, pesticide and fertilizer applications. Quality declared seed (QDS) multiplication; the project has also addressed lack of improved sesame seeds that were facing smallholder farmers in the area; COSITA in close collaboration with district seed inspectors and Tanzania official seed certification institute (TOSCI) facilitated twelve (12) seed multipliers (among the FBGs) to produce quality declared seeds during the 2015/2016 farming season to address lack of improved sesame seed among the smallholder farmers in Babati. Selection of competent farmers was done in collaboration with extension officers in the project villages and therefore trained on the basic principles of quality seed production, after training their farms were inspected by TOSCI to make sure they meet the standards. After farm inspection farmers (seed multipliers) were supported by the project by providing them with foundation seeds from Agriculture seed agency (ASA). On top of that TOSCI and district seed inspectors were in close supervision through regular visits and/ assessments. After harvest, COSITA submitted seed samples for each seed multiplier to TOSCI for laboratory test (germination and purity) and certification the step that was followed by seed packaging and labeling. To the time of this report, the total of 1486 kilograms of sesame quality seeds were produced and sold to sesame farmers in Babati. Integration of ICT into sesame best practices; the project has facilitated ToT among the smallholder farmers whereby lead farmers were selected from among the FBGs and were trained on the use of smartphones and the Application which has already been installed in those smartphones namely Kplus, the lead farmers became trainers after being imparted with the skills and provided with smartphones’ loans whereby Farm donates part of the cost as an incentive and each trainer has to repay the loan in kind by training 75 farmers (must be non FBgs members). The technology (Kplus) will enable trainers to reach more than 1500 farmers in 17 project villages. Objective2: Increased income from trading for 2,000 SH & 20 Community entrepreneurs (CEs) through Improved Market linkages in Babati. Outcome 2; Increase in household incomes by 40% and increase in buyers sourcing quality sesame from farmers in Babati district. The results achieved under outcome 2 for the period of January - December 2016 were the following;
The quarterly financial management workshop was conducted to female FBGs with their husbands including session on HIV awareness; the training was conducted in May, 2016 purposely to impart farmers with skills on marketing, and how they were supposed to spend the income they raised from sesame (to invest it/ prioritize capital goods instead of consumer goods), gender equality in relation to sesame farming to ensure women farmers solely/jointly responsible for managing their income; the training was conducted once during the year due to scarce budget available for the item. The number of people directly reached during the training was 513, disaggregated as (208 men and 305 women). Identification & capacity building training to gender role players in the project villages; COSITA has conducted one day training to the identified individuals with capacity to influence and sensitize communities on gender equality and inclusion of women and young people in sesame value chain. To make it effective, the team has decided to formulate the structure in the project villages i.e. gender role players (male and female) and enhanced their capacity through one day training purposely to conduct sensitization to change community mind set on the value of women and youth with agriculture as well as their inclusion in sesame value chain, marketing as well as joint decision making on the households’ resources namely; land, livestock, finances and so forth that affects their livelihoods. The main theme of the training was to capacitate the identified individuals, who will be responsible to sensitize communities on gender equality in the project areas, prepare work plan for gender role players for each project village being implemented by role players and later on COSITA Staff lead by M&E Officer will make follow up on its implementation (see the matrix bellow for work plans). It is obviously a voluntary work, inspiration talks/ debates to the target community groups, local campaign like structure aiming at changing community behavior and mindset so that they can develop positive attitude on the value of gender with agriculture. Project testimonies Tittle;CE’s Model Transforms Entrepreneurs’ Income, the Success Story of Ndemulikiwa Mbise Ndemulikiwa Mbise, is a female CE aged 45 years old also a Secretary for one of the farmers business group (FBG) at Malangi namely Nivushe. She is a farmer and also an entrepreneur, before attending training on business and market engagement conducted by COSITA in close collaboration with Cooperatives Officers from Babati town council, she used to engage in petty trade in the village, she had her small shop at home and was also buying and selling clothes especially ‘vitenge’ while she spend a lot of time by vising the customers at their homes. The kind of business she used to do was tough and consumes a lot of her time, she was sometimes getting loss as some customers were buying in advance and pay later while some of them were not trustworthy/ truthful. In June 2016 Ndemulikiwa started buying sesame whereby she succeed to buy only five bags from which she generated a profit of Tsh. 20,000/= per bag, she didn’t get a national buyer to sign MoU with and she stop buying sesame. In August, 2016 COSITA linked 7 CEs with national buyer to engage in pigeon peas business, she agreed with MCI Company from Mwanza to aggregate pigeon where she collected 47.114 tons of pigeon and was able to make a total net profit of Tsh. 1,083,622 i.e. Tsh. 23/kg of pigeon and all 7 CEs were able to collect a total of 414 tons for MCI Company. She confess that she is committed to continue with the business and was very thankful to COSITA team and Farm Africa by designing the model as it brings benefits not only to individuals but community as whole as it reduces a long chain between national buyers and farmers, the model has less setback to farmers as CEs uses the inspected weigh scale by weight and measures authority (WMA).
|