Francois Hitayezu, Chandiwira Chisi, Nkosazana Maqoma, Hasantha Gunaweera

Brief sharing on the ELBA workshops in

Malawi, Rwanda, Sri Lanka & South Africa

"I have harvested 6 bags of maize only. I spent the first few months of the growing season taking care of my daughter at the hospital. In January 2008 she died leaving behind 3 grand children in my care. I have two more daughters, both of them sickly and have eight children.We are looking forward to surviving on these 6 bags for the whole year. This irrigation scheme you see over there, it was my father who granted government land and concession to open the scheme in the 60s. Today, we are so poor. CBO leaders bring people here who talk to me about the scheme but I get nothing from emanating projects. I don't even know how these programmes are run. I just hear that govt is distributing farm input to some farming families on some kind of project yet I can't access the same. More often these are already well of households.  I have no idea on how to link myself to the so called government. The CBOs skirt around us and extension workers can rarely be seen."