Chickens, Chickens everywhere!!!!

Posted by Sue Portz 
 
One of our Club's international projects this year was to assist the Rotary Club of Mechongue, Argentina in building a poultry farm in their local school. The project is small, but an amazing joint venture between two very different countries.

Back in September 2007, our Executive Committee approved an international project to assist the Rotary Club of Mechongue, Argentina in developing a hen house, a chicken run, buying chickens, a rooster and one year of feed for the local school. 

This project is developed with the school district's educational program of teaching the children farming aspects in life.  The kids will learn how to build the house and run; how to care for the chickens and chicks; how to handle eggs, and what type of feed is best for these chickens.  The teachers for this project included a veternarian, two argiculturalists, and the school chef (the chickens will also be a source of food for the children at the school).

The purpose of this project is to educate the children in the ways of farming.  As Argentina is a thrid world country, it is in fact rich in farming. The problem is the majority of the younger generation, upon coming of age, move to the large cities, away from the farming communities.  Thus, there is very few young people to learn the argiculture trade in order to bring Argentina out of the status of being a third world country. 

All rural schools in Argentina teach agriculture as part of their normal ciriculum. As some schools are much poorer than others, the local Rotary Club in the town of Mechongue, decided to become involved in by developing this poultry project and helping with the construction.  We became invovled by supporting them with a small cash donation of $3500.  The project will be self-sustaining after the first year, as they need to get their first few rounds of chicks hatched and grown.

The picture attached shows the teachers involved in the project, and their obvious delight in hearing the news that the project can go forward now that it has been funded.

Over the next year our Club will be receiving updates on what is happening with the project and how it has developed. The Rotary Club of Mechongue, invites anyone in our Club who is interested in visting to certainly join them at any time.  They are quite excited and thankful for our support in this small, but meaningful joint venture.