Supporting family incomes through group participation
Bendita da Silva is an exceptional woman. With World Vision’s staff and the fellow members of her farmers’ group, the 35-year-old presented a vast array of products grown in the Timorese district of Baucau.
Bendita is a member of the two groups established by World Vision, one a food processing group, the other a savings and loans group. She has five children between the ages of two and 16 years, with all but the youngest being educated in Dili. Participation in these groups has provided significant benefits to her and her family.
“I learnt how to process and sell cassava, taro and bananas chips. From this, and the savings and loans group, I was able to buy a little ‘kios’ to sell in. With the money I gain from this kios I can support my children and my husband in his carpentry business” says Bendita.
“We do trainings for horticulture and compost making, pest control, seed production and much more” says Jose da Silva, one of Baucau’s Community Economic Development (CED) projects technical facilitators. “So far the majority of our farmer groups are made up entirely of women.”
Baucau’s CED project covers the three districts of Baucau, Venilale and Vemasse, with the overarching goal being to increase the economic capacity of producers in poor communities, enabling them to provide for their children. This is achieved in a variety of ways, starting from seed production and agricultural techniques through to connecting farmers to markets in Dili, including weekly sales to a capital-based supermarket.
Bendito Amaral Mascarenhas, a CED coordinator, explains that beginning in 2012, the project’s successes include creating savings and loans groups and collective selling, as well as grafting citrus, mango and avocado trees, with 5,400 men, 5,300 women, 6,300 boys and 5,800 girls benefitting as a direct result.
Grant project
Baucau Community Economic Development (Going to CED: Economic development in Timor-Leste - Baucau)
Funded by: Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) - Australian NGO Cooperation Program (ANCP)
Time frame: December 2012 - June 2017
Purpose and Objective: The project goal is “To increase the economic capacity of producers in poor communities and enable them to provide well for their children”. The project enables farmers in Baucau to enter the market economy through linking them to buyers of key crop and livestock products. This gives them the ability to provide for their families with reliable income and can be replicated throughout the region.This project is a market led agricultural development intervention based on the Local Value Chain Development model with training on some innovative farming methods to increase food security and production of crop surpluses for communities in Baucau.
