Taking time off to help people in Kenya. A story from Berend Lolkema.
This is a letter from Berend Lolkema. Berend left Avantium to follow his dream and give something back to society. We at Avantium are excited about the work Berend is doing and we enjoy reading his stories. We wanted to share his letter with you.
Berend Lolkema
Hello all,
I am finally writing to you from Kenya! For those of you who don't know me, my name is Berend Lolkema and I worked for Avantium 7 months ago as a service engineer for the Pharma Systems department working with the Crystal16 and the Crystalline. After working at Avantium for 2,5 years, I decided that I wanted to see more of the world, and choose to do volunteer work in Kenya. I am now located in South Nyanza province, which is one of the poorest areas in Kenya. When this information came to the ears of people within Avantium, they decided that Avantium would like to sponsor this work in Kenya. This funding has enabled me to assist multiple groups on the projects they are doing.
The area where I'm actually living is called Kochia, which is a small region near Homa Bay (this is one of the bigger cities in South Nyanza). I volunteer for a foundation called FreeKenia, which boosts farmers in Nyanza province with knowledge and income generating programs. These programs help improve the quality of their lives here, so they aren't forced to move to the larger slums in Kisumu and Nairobi to find work.
In Kochia, the Foundation has a small Farmer Field School, where we show what kind of crops farmers can grow in this area. One of those crops is Moringa. The project we are doing there we do together with a CBO (Community Based Organization) called Nyikwa Ramogi and Abba (no, not like the Swedish band).
The Moringa project is dealing with a tree named Moringa Oleifera. This tree is also known as the Drumstick tree, or Miracle tree. Strange name? Maybe, but if you consider that the leaves of this tree contain a lot of nutrients, and that the tree (including roots and other parts of the tree) can cure more than 300 diseases, then it is not that strange. As I know from my Avantium time, I cannot just say that it cures diseases. There have not been any clinical trials testing Moringa, but it has been found that there is high nutritional value found in the leaves of this tree. Vitamin A, Vitamin C, proteins, minerals and more have been found inside the leaves. Very interesting!
The Moringa tree was not really known in this area and nobody was growing it as a crop. We (from FreeKenia) wanted to change this, so we first visited people to find out how to grow and process this tree. This doesn't happen that much in Nyanza, but via some connections we ended up meeting an American couple that was growing and processing Moringa in their one garden in Kisumu (capital of Nyanza province). They were also already selling the Moringa on a small scale basis. After seeing this, we set up a budget and started building a dry house for the processing of the moringa leaves. (See pictures 1 and 2). In the first two pictures you can see the place where we have built the structure.
Picture 1: The place before construction.
Picture 2: The first stage of the dry house
After clearing the area of trees and plants and leveling the ground, the first poles of the structure where put in the place (see picture 2). After this, we constructed the structure for the roof. When this was finished, we painted all the wood with used oil to fight against termites. (See pictures 3) We then simply put iron sheets around the building. (See pictures 4). This may look very simple, but believe me, many blisters have formed on my hands from building this house!
Picture 3: Painting the wood with used oil
Picture 4: Putting the iron sheets around the structure
After this we painted the structure black, so the leaves inside can dry by solar power. They are also protected against animals or outside weather. See picture 5 for the finished dry house. The house also has a cement floor to protect against termites, which will interfere with the moringa leaves that are being dried. This dry house was built with the sponsor money from Avantium.
Picture 5: Outside dry house
Picture 6: Inside dry house when in full use
We have also set up a small plantation where we demonstrate how to grow moringa. We have planted around 6000 trees on this plot. (see picture 7). The field is showing farmers that moringa can be grown in the local area and also shows how it should be grown to get the highest production.
We will keep the moringa trees small, so the harvesting of the leaves will be easy to perform. When the trees grow bigger, they will be pruned. After pruning more branches will start growing and more leaves will be ready for harvesting. (see picture 8)
Picture 7: The plot where the moringa is growing
Picture 8: First harvest of moringa leaves
After harvesting and drying the leaves, they will be crushed into a powder which will be packed and sold in local stores (See picture 9) to ensure that the community is getting necessary nutrients for a local price.
Picture 9: Above the package with the label, underneath is shown how the powder is looking as it is packed.
Meanwhile we also try to help the farmers with the marketing, so moringa can eventually also be sold in the bigger cities, but in order to do this, we need many more farmers to produce moringa. To realize this goal, we are also making farmers aware of moringa to try to encourage them to grow it. Everyone, including the buyers and sellers, benefits from this moringa plant.
So what did Avantium sponsor from this project?
- The dry house for drying the leaves
- The processing of dried leaves into packed powder
Avantium also sponsored the repair of a car that we used for reaching out to farmers, for collecting information.
Thank you all for sponsoring this project. If anyone has any questions, please feel free to send me any questions via berendlolkema@hotmail.com. For the old colleagues who are interested in other stories, please check: http://lolkema.waarbenjij.nu. The link is in Dutch. My apologies for this, but if I need to start writing in English, please let me know.
Warm Regards,
Berend
