Over the last few months, Christopher and the wider community looked at some income generating schemes for the future.

I have pulled the main documents and links to discussion in the old task and posted here for information. Apologies this is not a very organised list but may give ideas for discussion.

They did an assessment in the community to see what their main needs were. Education came out top, but there were also some income generation ideas:
1. Secondary education
2. Clean water supply
3. Trade
4. Savings and credit
5. Piggery (Pigs raising)
5. Brick making (same preference as piggery)
7. Nursery tree planting
8, Goat keeping

See
http://www.nabuur.com/files/attach/2008/07/task/10112_480728d04d136.doc

and the associated discussion, mostly on this page
http://www.nabuur.com/en/village/masaka/project/task/review-masaka-appli...

Thy started on a small-scale piggery project at the school – I am not sure whether this is actually up and running or not. More info at
http://www.nabuur.com/en/village/masaka/project/task/review-masaka-appli...

The proposal for doing this on a larger scale, including piglets for the community, is at
http://www.nabuur.com/files/attach/2008/07/task/10112_483a93bb6f75c.doc with discussion mostly on http://www.nabuur.com/en/village/masaka/project/task/review-masaka-appli...

We also talked a little about Solar Cooking, both for the school and as a source of income.
See http://solarcooking.wikia.com/wiki/Sunny_Solutions and http://solarcookers.org/programs/multkenya.html and about low-energy cooking in general as the school and local community use a lot of wood for cooking which is expensive and has an impact on the environment

Other things that have come up recently are starting a school farm/garden both to provide food for students (who don’t always get enough to eat) and for sale

And repair/assembly of bicycles (see the transport task)

Teach A Man To Fish http://www.teachamantofish.org.uk are a UK-based organisation who focus on creating self-sufficient agricultural training centres. Their Resources page http://www.teachamantofish.org.uk/resources.php contains information that could be relevant to any school that wishes to start a school-based business to create income for the school.

Mary

The school have already started two small-scale income generating projects.

Christopher provided the following information under the Project Room task:

"The Piggery,is going on,we have 1 mature pig and 3 younger ones, i will post a photoe of this next week.
As you may not all of you be aware,last sunday.was the our school Annual Parents/Guardians day and one parent donated 3 rabbits as a start for a rabbit income generating project.
A small house has been built using cutt offs from timber and cutt offs from iron sheets.
Now the rabbits are there and children are doing the feeding and care."

Mary

Hi Christopher

I thought you may be interested in this post from Bukoggolwa village, as the same idea could work for Notre Dame too.

Mary

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From http://www.nabuur.com/en/village/bukoggolwa/project/task/brainstorm-ways...

QUOTE

Barb Briggs
Re: Brainstorm ways to allow for the School to be self-sustainable
Thu, 2008/11/27 - 16:10

Hi,

One way to make the school self-sustainable is through a library - not sure if the school has one, but if there is a small space that can be used as a library there are ways to generate income. In one successful project I have seen, people are charged a small monthly subscriptions fee (determined by the community to be acceptable and affordable but still enough to generate some income) for use of the library. The library would need to have copies of text books and other materials of interest to people in the community. The subscription fee would be far less than parents having to purchase books for their children and would provide them access to the books for studying purposes. In addition, the librarian or a teacher could offer evening or weekend/out of school tutoring. This would help the children learn more and generate some income. The fee charged again would have to be acceptable in the community but still enough to pay the tutor/librarian and generate some income. Also, out of school time, the classes can be used for adult literacy. In a project in Kenya, many mothers were willing to pay a fee to learn to read and write English. The school allowed the women to pay as a group so that they could take turns. For example if there was 3 women but then couldn't all attend at once, they would pay for 1 women and they could alternate evenings that they came. The woman that attended the class would then teach the other two women what was covered during the class they missed. This makes it more affordable for the women, but also generates income.

Also, in off school times the space can be rented out for community activities.

In addition, if you think of a library space as a business, there are many opportunities for generating income. In the project mentioned above, the librarian/teacher had an incentive to come up with viable income generating ideas, as 50% of the income generated went to her as her wages - if there was no income coming in to the school/library, then there would be no income for her as well. Some of the ideas that they came up with included the rental of soccer balls, the rental of newspapers each day, the rental of cameras, and the selling of small goods made by the students or other community members.

Barb

END QUOTE

Hi Christopher

I have mentioned Teach A Man To Fish - http://www.teachamantofish.org.uk - before. They provide advice to schools who wish to become self-suffient by running school-based businesses.

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I have just come across a new manual on their site which may be of interest

School In A Box - A Guide to Creating Your Own Self Sufficient School
http://www.teachamantofish.org.uk/resources/schoolinabox.php

QUOTE

Making Sustainable Education Simpler

We've now proven beyond a doubt that a school can offer students a transformative high quality education and cover their own costs through school-run businesses.

Nonetheless people often ask us, 'If financially self-sufficient schools are such a good idea , why aren't there more schools following this model?'.

The short answer is that starting a financially self-sufficient school has always been too hard and too full of risks for most institutions to contemplate.

The SCHOOL IN A BOX Guide Series aims to make starting such a school easy, and reduce the risks involved to a mangeable level.

This series draws together the collective experiences of TeachAManToFish, our sister organization Fundacion Paraguaya, and the many school partners we work with across the developing world into nine easy-to-read self-help manuals.

END QUOTE

I have not read the whole thing in detail, but the ideas may be relevant to you so thought I would pass it on! It comes is several parts, each of which are quite large. I don't know whether it is possible to get a printed copy, although it may be worth asking them. If they don't and it looks useful, I can put it on CD if you are not able to download it from their website..

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As I said, they assist schools in becoming self-sufficient by running school-based businesses. http://www.teachamantofish.org.uk/aboutus.php gives more information on what they do.

The initial focus was on schools that provide agricultural education, but it now covers any schools that wish to become self sufficient.

Schools can join their network http://www.teachamantofish.org.uk/members/register.php

"The TeachAManToFish Members' Network is an international network of more schools, education organizations and individuals working in education committed to sustainable approaches to tackling rural poverty.

We want to provide a forum for practitioners and organisations to share ideas and innovations, and to foster South-South relations in this field.

Membership is free and offers members the chance to take part in online forums, attend international conferences, and receive a quarterly newsletter."

They don't provide funding, but could be a great source of advice and give an opportunity to share information with other schools who have similar interests.

So, if you have a real interest in making the school more self-sufficient, I would encourage you to join and see what you can learn from them.

Mary