Morjina Begum, 40, wife of a van-puller, Abdul Matin, is now at the threshold of eradicating her long-lasting poverty through household-based chicken rearing through modern method. Morjina, mother of two daughters and a son and a resident of Halidagachhi Abason (Shelter) under Charghat upazila of the district, embarked on the mission of achieving self reliance early 2011. At the preliminary stage, she received training on chicken rearing along with its proper feeding, vaccination and marketing by the Local Service Providers (LSP). In the current year, she earned Taka 2100 after selling eggs and chicken. She told BSS that both demand and market price of native chicken variety is higher than that of others. After becoming a part of her 25-member of Halidagachhi Micro and Small Enterprise (MSE), Morjina enjoys some extra privileges of poultry rearing and its marketing. Elder daughter, Mukta Begum, a student of class nine of nearby Zafarpur Secondary Girls School, gets all institutional expenses from her mother’s earning that encourages her to higher education in the
days ahead. Beyond the MSE members like Morjina Begum, many other households of the poverty-stricken community are involved in the poultry rearing activities. Monowara Yeasmin, President of Service Provider Association (SPA) in Charghat, says all the MSE members are very much optimistic about improving their living and livelihood condition through the poultry rearing value chain. The households have learnt how to promote the community business after the best uses of the local resources and services.In an effort to sustainable well-being and resilience of poor and extreme poor households, Helvetas Swiss Intercooperation Bangladesh has been implementing a project styled “Samriddhi: Good Practices in Enhancing Rural Prosperity through Employment and Income in Bangladesh” with financial support from SDC. Recently, a three-member team- Azizul Islam, Principal Scientific Officer (Animal Nutrition), Dr Nathuram Sarker, Project Director (Fodder Research and Development Project), and Dr. Nurul Amin, Principal Scientific Officer (Field Disease Investigation Laboratory) from Department of Livestock Services-visited the chicken rearing activities at Halidagachhi Abason. Disseminating their expertise to the community people, the team members urged the small entrepreneurs to use the modern technology in
their activities for making the business profitable and sustainable. Like the Halidagachhi, more than 7,500 poor and extreme poor households most of them are women have developed 214 chicken MSEs in 17 upazilas of Rajshahi, Chapainawabganj, Natore and Pabna districts with the project intervention, said Archana Nath, Regional Coordinator of the project. Archana Nath says through establishing service contract points in their respective areas more than 700 LSPs deliver requisite training, advice and inputs services to the producers after taking training on chicken rearing. Various public institutions and agencies provide extension services to the LSPs, who earn on an average Taka 1500 per month. In practice, they disseminate different modern technology to the producers through setting demonstration plot within the working households. “We organise community meeting with assistance of private companies for building awareness about quality products regularly,” said Faruque Hossain, an LSP of Charghat. The LSPs have good collaboration and linkage with line departments and private companies as they establish functional linkage with product based traders, pickers and private companies. Animal Nutritionist Azizul Islam told BSS that many of the rural households have now become involved in chicken rearing commercially through various GO- NGO level interventions which is a good sign for eradicating rural poverty. “Basically, a silence revolution has been
taken place in poultry rearing,” he added. –BSS, Rajshahi
