Attachab

John Dada's vision for Attachab  is that it will be a model integrated farm with a high hands-on learning component, it will be the base for various SMEs (Small and Medium Entrerprises) and it will share what it learns.

The proportion of farming, health, nutrition etc will be a fluid formula depending on what resources and opportunities are available. It will ultimately be self-sustaining. It will combine new initiatives with some already developed by Fantsuam Foundation elsewhere (Fantsuam Foundation - FF - is Dadamac's sister orgnaisation). Cicely's blog is about a visit to the Attachab site, by people from Fantsuam Foundation.

Relevance

We believe that, in the long term, work done at Attachab will have wide relevance:

• Locally - serving the needs of people normally helped by Fantsuam Foundation
• At other locations in Nigeria and beyond - through proposed training courses at Attachab to share what works well and to support replication
• In "developed countries" by collaborating with people who want to do research on alternative technologies and sustainable community development.
• With local communites (worldwide) who are working towards local sustainability and want to network with us so we can share good practice with each other.

For further discussion of wider relevance see Pam we want street lights

Collaboration

Dadamac seeks collaboration on projects relating to:

• sustainable futures
• appropriate technology
• construction
• farming
• permaculture
• energy
• water and sanitation
• ICT
• all aspects of community development that might be appropriate for Attachab and communities with similar vision.

Funding

We seek more funding (investments, grants, or gifts) to take forward work we have started in a small, minimally funded way:

• Demonstrated technology transfer with the Ecodome project,
  
  • Can do other technology transfer work and proof of concept.
  • Seek funding for trying other building techniques
• Initial work for a bee-keeping project Have been able to translate a beekeeping manual into Hausa.

• Fish-farming enterprise has started (fishponds werer dug by the river, based on the learning experiences of Fantsuam Foundation at the fish farm in Bayan Loco which was too far from running water.
• Permaculture (and more) - Marcus Simmons  Bidi Bala, and Kazanka Comfort visited the Songhai centre in Benin to see best practice permaculture (and discovered other good pracitce which can also be replicated). After the visit Marcus ran practical demonstrations and local training at Attachab.
  • People are interested but initial investment is needed to implement these ideas on a sustainable commercial scale
• Internet - Zittnet hopes to provide facilities for Attachab, and came close to doing so when funding was granted for a Community Communication Centre for Fanstuam Foundation - unfortunately for Attachab the funding was not sufficient for the additional mast etc required at a completely new site so the CCC had to be built at the Fantsuam main site instead.
  
  • Zittnet is a social business. It will continue to look for ways to bring Internet services to Attachab. 

Infrastructure and sustainability

Lack of infrastructure is an important issue, and not just for the Internet. Electrical power, water and sanitation are all likely to be dealt with on a local basis rather than through external provision. This provides opportunities for trying out new approaches to the development of sustainable communities.

Long term plans

On the UK side we are helping to:

• Bring in expertise from outside
• Provide an opportunity for such expertise to be applied, tested and developed in the  local context.

In the longer term Dadamac hopes to

• Support replication.
• Explore the most effective ways to share what has been learned, first by onsite training, then through developing distance learning resources.

Vision

For some years the idea of Attachab only existed in John's imagination. He commissioned an architect's model which he put on the veranda of the main house at Fantsuam Foundation.

People seeing the model began to believe in the idea of the big new site and would gather round the model disussing the details.  Finally a local chief made some land available so the vision could start to become a reality at Attachab.

The site is bounded by a road on one side and and a small river on another. The first step was to mark some boundaries with walls, and plant saplings to mark out the two tree-lined avenues which will cross the site.

Benefits to collaborators. philanthropists and investors

Working with Dadamac means working with projects that are all inter-related, deeply embedded in the local community, and part of a long term vision. We are willing to collaborate on new projects. We can assure collaborators that Dadamac projects are completely different to  short-term, top-down "hit-and-run pilot projects". Any collaboration at Attachab will be part of a holistic long term programme with genuine concern for the wider context,  long term implications, and replication.