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| December 2005 |
| Herb Project on the go! |
| At the beginning of November Kufunda's herbal project team produced its first herbal remedies from the herbs from the herbal garden. During a workshop, the team, which has been working on growing and producing herbs over the past many months, stepped into the work of producing remedies and medicines from the herbs, primarily focusing on ailments affecting people living with HIV/AIDS. The first few products included different diarrhoea mixtures; various skin ointments, and a few herbal soaps. They look forwarding to continuing their learning and production of herbal remedies. |
| Trees for Life |
| In the last few weeks the same team has been busy with the planting of Moringa Olifeira as a nutritional supplement. The leaves of moringa tree are highly nutritious, containing significant quantities of vitamins A,B and C, calcium, iron and protein. The intention is to be able to spread the growing of moringa to all the communities we work with. At the same time the team is planting Jatropha trees extensively as live fencing around the herb garden, permaculture field and cottage garden and as windbreaks at the
village. Jatropha makes drought resistant fencing, and the seeds of the jatropha can be used for soap making as well as bio-fuel ? both exiting projects for the future. Both of these initiatives are happening in collaboration with Tree Africa and Jean-Pierre Felu. We are excited to be in this process of learning about and experimenting with the options available to everyone for simple healthy wholesome living. |
| Ruwa Open Day |
| We hosted our first Open Day specially for the Ruwa community which is the homeplace of Kufunda. It was a wonderful day. Around 100 people joined us from the community of Ruwa. Different teams of people, including the Ruwa community organisers, hosted the visitors in showing them around the village. Auntie Emma, Sophia and Mai Nyathi shared the ins and out of the new chengeta huni stoves; the herb team led by Daiton, showed their little lab and first set of products; Fidelis and Ticha took people to the bee hives and explained the workings of the compost toilets, Patricia and Anna with all the pre-school children entertained with song and dance, and so on. We all realised during that day just how many people have stepped in and become a part of the village. |
| Noisy Youth Invade the Village |
| F o r 4 d a y s 2 7 c h i l d r e n o f 9 - 1 3 , m a n y o f t h e m o r p h a n s a n d m e m b e r s o f c h i l d - h e a d e d h o u s e h o l d s , c a m e f o r a h o l i d a y a n d a b r e a k a t K u f u n d a V i l l a g e . I t w a s a t i m e t o r e l a x , t o h a v e f u n , t o b e i n n a t u r e , t o e a t h e a l t h y o r g a n i c f o o d , b u t a l s o a t i m e t o e x p l o r e t o g e t h e r w h a t i t m e a n s t o g r o w u p , l e a r n i n g l i f e s k i l l s , t h e v a l u e o f c a r i n g f o r o n e a n o t h e r , a n d b u i l d i n g t h e s e l f - c o n f i d e n c e t o c o n t i n u e t o f a c e a t o u g h r e a l i t y .
I t w a s a w o n d e r f u l e x p e r i e n c e , a n d w e w i l l d e f i n i t e l y b e r u n n i n g m o r e y o u t h c a m p s w i t h R o k p a g o i n g f o r w a r d . T o g e t h e r w i t h R o k p a w e w i l l a l s o b e r u n n i n g c a r e g i v e r s w o r k s h o p s f o r c a r e g i v e r s l o o k i n g a f t e r c h i l d r e n a f f e c t e d b y H I V / A I D S , a s p a r t o f o u r w o r k o f s u p p o r t i n g a n d c a r i n g f o r t h e y o u n g . O t h e r a c t i v i t i e s i n t h i s a r e a i n c l u d e r u n n i n g t h e e d u c a t i o n f u n d , w h i c h p r o v i d e s s c h o o l f e e s f o r o r p h a n s , a n d s u p p o r t i n g t h e c o m m u n i t y p r e - s c h o o l p l a c e s w h e r e t h e y o u n g e s t c h i l d r e n o f t h e c o m m u n i t y a n d a g a i n o f t e n o r p h a n s a n d t h e m o s t v u l n e r a b l e - c a n c o m e d a i l y f o r a g o o d m e a l a n d l o v e a n d c a r e .
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| Welcoming New People on the team |
| Kufunda is growing!
As a part of the Volens co-operant programme, Kufunda has hired Melanie Furman to join Kufunda for two years as Income Generating Co-ordinator. She will support the communities we work with in building their capacity and ability to start and run small and micro-enterprises.
We have also just hired Jackie Cahi to join us as our new operations manager, who will be taking over much of the day to day management of the village.
We look forward to welcoming both women onto our team.
And finally Claudia Zehl from Germany (pictured to the right with Tsitsi) is coming back as a volunteer. She spent around 7 months at Kufunda in 2004-2005, and has decided to come back for three more months in the new year, which we are all looking forward to. |
| Joining us to make our work possible |
| The outline of our initiatives for 2006 is ready. We are seeking financial and other support for this work from anyone who would like to be a part of growing Kufunda. |
| For 2006, we will be continuing our core work of running community programmes and developing Kufunda as a demonstration centre. |
| Additionally we have grouped our work into the following programme areas: Health, nutrition and sanitation; economic self-reliance; Investing in the young; and living with the land. Please email for details of the initiatives in each of these areas. |
| We hope you will join us in this work. |
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