Update to the Global Board

Epicenter Strategy

During this third quarter 2006, The Hunger Project-Benin is working in eight epicenters which are in various stages of evolution within the four phases:

• Two epicenters are in phase one – mobilizing villagers;
• One epicenter in phase two – construction of the epicenter building;
• Four epicenters are in phase three – progress on all fronts; and
• One epicenter is in phase four, which is the stage where the people in this epicenter are poised to achieve self-reliance and reach the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

These eight epicenters encompass a population that is close to one million people.

Vision, Commitment and Action Workshop: Animator training

The VCA workshop is a very important tool to empower our rural communities, both men and women, to become self-reliant. During the 3^rd quarter 2006 over 1,000 people attended the workshops. In the same period, 200 animators were selected and trained to work in their villages to train their partners.

These dedicated animators, trained to work with their own people, act as role models to provide an example through their personal leadership to support and empower people in their villages to become self-reliant. THP-Benin has reported that our partner populations and local government officials continue to attend these workshops and very much appreciate the workshops’ transformational effect on the mind-set of the rural populations.

Food security

THP-Benin has been empowering and supporting farmers with trainings and material to increase and diversify their food production, introducing different varieties of maize, rice, corn and other vegetables, both for selling at the local market and for household consumption. In particular, women’s participation in food production and income-generating activities has dramatically increased in the last few years because of the effectiveness of the AWFFI program that provides credit and training for our women partners.  The AWFFI training includes food production with improved seeds and appropriate technology to grow a variety of vegetables along with food processing. These projects make a significant improvement in household nutrition status as well as in family income.

Food Bank

Each epicenter includes a community food bank in addition to small individual food banks for each household. The provisions for the food banks come from the harvest collected from the community fields that are cultivated by all the villagers working cooperatively. This means that starvation during the lean season between harvests is a phenomenon of the past in the epicenter communities.

 

Micro-Credit and epicenter Rural Banks

THP-Benin has established rural banks for its micro-finance program for men and women in all eight epicenters.  It is an important program to empower our partners in increasing food production and income generating activities for self-reliance and sustainable development. This micro-finance program of AWFFI includes three important elements, namely the revolving loan funds, interest paid on loan repayments and savings.  This program enables epicenter communities after a period of five years of activities to create “rural banks” recognized by the government. We expect that in the fourth quarter 2006 one additional rural bank will be officially set up in two epicenters.

 

Education and Adult Literacy Program

An adult literacy program is now carried out in all the epicenters providing education for both women and men. Women take advantage of this program while men tend to be shy about participating. Because of a good relationship between THP-Benin and the education department, the epicenters are receiving from the local governments teaching materials in local languages which are being used in more than 30 literacy centers. To date, THP-Benin has trained more than 500 literacy animators to teach in local languages, resulting in more than 10,000 literate men and women in the epicenter communities.

Health and Hygiene

The health center in each epicenter includes education on improving the health and nutrition of our partner villages, while providing vaccinations and immunization for children. There is a special focus on primary health care for women. In some cases, local governments in partnership with our rural partners have also funded the construction of latrines and dug wells for safe drinking water. In collaboration with THP, the Health Ministry, as an expression of the government’s partnership, supplies to each epicenter a minimum of two trained heath officers who are available to the population at all times.

HIV/AIDS program

THP-Benin continues to implement the program for the prevention of the spread of HIV/AIDS with THP’s “HIV/AIDS and Gender Inequality” workshop in all eight epicenters. There are now over 300 specialized HIV/AIDS animators, both men and women, trained to teach our partners about the prevention of HIV/AIDS, especially through a new understanding and behavior based on gender equality. This program is raising the awareness amongst our partners that gender inequality is one of the root causes for the spread of AIDS in Benin and that if men can take responsibility in this matter and commit themselves to safe sex, the spread of AIDS could be dramatically reduced.  Local health officials have reported that the trend of infections has been dramatically reduced among the rural populations of our epicenters.