After a being closed for a long time because of covid19, our eye clinic recently opened to long queues of patients. We’ve no money for cataract operations right now (we’re saving up) but Agnes, our optometrist, gave a lot of people better sight through prescription spectacles. Here are photos of just some of them. They look pretty happy about their specs.
Sorry for the silence. We’ve been busy doing housekeeping stuff including taking on a new recruit to help with next year’s farming. This is going to be fantastic. Our farm support project will cover thirty villages for four years and during that time farmers in the thirty communities will get farm training and loans to buy quality farm inputs.
And because they pay back the loan with interest each year after harvest, and each spring we lend them what they’ve just paid back (ie loan plus interest), the loan fund keeps its value in real terms and is ready for us to lend out in the new villages.
Farmers who go through our farm support scheme say their harvest doubles or trebles in size in just one year, and after four it is much much bigger. We’re hoping this project will have a big impact on hunger across the whole area. The picture shows farmers receiving their loans before planting
Thank you to everyone who came to our party last Saturday. The rain held off, the sun came out, the food was great – and it was so good to see so many donors and volunteers and supporters again.
There’s been a long-standing debate about two different points of view in relation to our clinic at Gyetiase-Nsuta. One part say it’s essential to build a wall round the clinic. Otherwise, they say, the animals will rub up against the existing walls and leave them very grimy.
The second part says that walls are scary, people may be frightened to come to the clinic if it’s got a wall right round it. Better to leave it open.
For now, we’ve reached a compromise. We’re going to do a bit of landscaping, plant some trees and see how we feel later. Any views would be welcome.
