Fighting poverty and educating kids through village economic development

A non-profit organisation in Mpumalanga is helping to fight poverty at grassroots level by ensuring that children in early childhood development (ECD) centres are well-fed while they learn. Based in Bushbuckridge in the Ehlanzeni district, the Bushbuckridge Crèches Confederation (BCC) was registered in 2022 as part of a cooperative that was established in 2014 and supports ECD programmes at 55 centres. Four years ago, the BCC came up with a long-term solution by starting layer and broiler chicken farms at seven of the 55 ECD centres.

Each one produces about a dozen eggs per day and chicken meat to feed the children, and the surplus is sold to buy the next cycle of chicks to ensure sustainability. “This was made possible by the $10,000 (about R163,000) funding that we received from the US embassy in Pretoria,” Vermeulen said. “The funding allowed us to buy equipment to build mobile broiler cages and to also buy 100 chickens and 12 layer chickens for each of the seven ECD centres.” The BCC strives to provide the ECD centres with the necessary resources, support and training to fight poverty through the poultry and vegetable farming initiative.

“This approach ensures that young children are nourished, while enabling parents and teachers to work and sell the excess produce to their communities and ultimately creating employment and sustainability,” Vermeulen explained. He said the centres practise permaculture as the mobile broiler cages allow them to use the chicken droppings as fertiliser so that the vegetables grow on the fertile ground where the mobile broiler cages were once placed. During the 2021/22 financial year, the National Development Agency became aware of the existence of the BCC.

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Impressed by its efforts to alleviate poverty in the area, it approved its application for funding to roll out its poultry and vegetable farming project to 15 more ECD centres, bringing the total to 22. “We received grant funding of R688,776 for the project. Over and above building the cages and buying chickens, the money also helped us buy chicken feed, including starter mash, grower, and finisher pellets.

This allowed the centres to grow the layers and broilers to a point of sale for both eggs and chickens,” Vermeulen said. He admits that not all ECDs are managing to sustain the model, but the majority are. The BCC is planning to roll out the programme to the remaining ECDs so all 55 centres are self-sustainable, alleviate poverty and create employment for locals. The BCC strongly believes that through village economic development, SA can win a fight against poverty because it is a model that uses available community assets supported by local labour.

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