We have been supporting Oke-Ogun Community Development Network (OCDN), Attachab Eco-Village and the Yoghurt Project, and we hope to fundraise and help Zittnet with its last-mile connectivity.
OCDN
The connection with OCDN goes back to Pam's early links with Ago-Are. The update is that Fola and PD are exploring ways to get the InfoCentre at Ago-Are connected to the Internet. Dadamac Foundation is supporting Fola with the cost of going online (more about this in the Dadamac Learners' news).
Attachab Eco-Village
Dadamac is involved with Attachab Eco-Village is various ways, both in Nigeria and in the UK. The vision is John's. Pam, over in UK, has raised the profile of Attachab Eco-village and encouraged eco-aware people to get involved. The Eco-dome built at Attachab was done with minimum funding. Its objective was to see if Eco-dome building might be practical in Nigeria. It was also th first project that Dadamac facilitated for an external organisation (Ecoshelter) through its UK-Nigeria online meetings.
The work with Ecoshelter was a great success, both as an effective collaborative venture, and because the eco-dome won the enthusiastic approval of local people. However, this was a very low budget project. A small functional eco-dome was constructed quickly and effectively by local people under the leadership and teaching of Marcus Simmons of Eco-dome, but there was no money for niceties such as plastering the eco-dome. That made it vulnerable to the elements during the rainy season. One idea was that it might be a good idea to top the ecodome with thatch. Dadamac Foundation contributed to the cost, and the work has been done. We look forward to photos for the blog.
The Yoghurt Project
The Yoghurt Project was inspired by the Mohammed Yunus book "Creating a World Without Poverty"(WWP for short), chapters 6 and 7. These tell the story of how Danone set up a social business in Bangledesh.The purpose and objectives are laid out on Page 144. Dadamac was inspired by the idea of a yoghurt business designed to improve the nutritional levels of children who are poor, and explored how the idea could be applied to benefit the orphans and vulnerable children that John was trying to help locally. John and Pam presented a copy of WWP to one of John's friends, who is with a Yoghurt business in Nigeria, suggesting that maybe one day his company would follow in the footsteps of Danone. The outcome was that the company presented a bull from its dairy herd, to Fantsuam Foundation to breed with the local cows, and increase their yield. Dadamac Foudation helped to build a shelter for the bull and "his wives".
We have really sad news this week about the bull, and it follows previous difficulties. One problem was losing the roof of the shelter during a storm (which we fixed). The next problem was much worse. The bull fell into the River Wonderful. He was rescued and it seemed all would be well, but three days later he died, probably from internal injuries. It seemed that our hopes of improving our herd had vanished, but after some weeks, to our delight, another bull arrived. This bull was placed in the safety of the fish farm compound (so named because of an early experiment with fish farming that has now relocated to Attachab Eco-village) to settle in before being introduced to the cows. On Monday at about 10.00 am the bull slumped and died. As John reported at the UK-Nigeria meeting on Wednesday "some staff are still in mourning, it was that devastating and I am still lost for words."
The ZittNet Mast
ZittNet is a social business, which provides Internet connectivity to various rural organisations. It has recently faced some devastating challenges which it has faced wiht typical courage and determination. Thanks to the Fantsuam Foundation Micro-credit programme it has managed to raise a loan to tide it over for six months. It deserves help. Dadamac Foundation welcomes contributions to help ZittNet recover from the blows.