DF Executive Director Visits HAVOYOCO’s Project Sites

On 6^th of July, 2017, Mrs. Kari, DF executive director, completed one day visit to HAVOYOCO’s project sites in Gabiley district to experience firsthand some of the activities being implemented under Norwegian Development Fund (NDF) supported projects in Somaliland.The delegation was guiding by Abdilahi Mohamoud Hassan, HAVOYOCO’s Somaliland country representative, and agro-pastoral project team members, at first the director visited the seed bank in Galoley village and observed the process of seed distribution services to beneficiaries  and the different ways of storing agricultural seeds, than she had a meeting with community seed bank committee who were very thank full HAVOYOCO’s cooperation and DF in particular, Mohamoud Hassan, the secretary of seed bank committee put in plain words the importance of the seed bank, their achievements and challenges as well as the positive impact of the seed bank to the surrounding villages and their plan of achieving more customers throughout Somaliland regions, The director appreciated the excellent work going on in the seed bank and encouraged the committee the sustainability of their good work, she further reminded the committee the golden opportunity they had in which no one else in the country have.

On the other hand, during her visit, the DF director attended and observed a Community Animal Health Workers training participated by health workers from Garab-Cad and Caro Malko villages (project areas), Abdilahi Mohamoud Hassan, demonstrated the objectives of the training as to improve the welfare and livelihoods of poor and disadvantaged pastoralists and agro-pastoralists in rural areas through trainings of CAHWs in the provision of animal health services to sustain and improve their family income from animal production. The CAHWs training will focus on basic knowledge of common livestock diseases, diagnosis and treatments to enhance livestock herder’s skills on animal diseases in terms of recognition, treatment and vet drug usage where there are no vet doctors Abdilahi concluded the provision of veterinary drug kits to the trained CAHWs to support their respective communities, the director cherished the prized the tangible work of Health Workers and persuaded them to utilize the training contents to support your communities through provision of your time and skills.

In addition to that, The DF Director visited Garab-cad village and observed the general impact of project’s intervention including farmer’s employment on agricultural techniques as well as ongoing construction of soil bunds, Mohamed Ali, HAVOYOCO’s DF project manager explicated DF supported activities implemented in Garab Cad village including behavioral change agricultural techniques capacity buildings given to farmers, provision of seeds and tillage hours to 100 poor and drought affected Households who have shown complete vulnerability to drought and could not afford the cost of tractors, the construction of communal dam to act water reservoir tool for the community as well as construction of soil bunds intended to reduce the increased gully erosion which affected the fertile farming lands of many farmers

Lastly, Karin DF director met some of soil bund beneficiaries in Garab-cad villages who shared with her their positive gratitude with DF and HAVOYOCO as well as the consequences of last year’s drought which resulted families to lose most of their livestock and induced some of them to migrate far distant places for better pasture and water, than the director thanked the beneficiaries for their cooperation and encouraged them to use the resilience techniques for adapting disasters like drought.