Grant Funding for Three Organizations…

Three organizations were awarded grant funding for initiatives across the Belize District including small ruminants, home gardening and nature appreciation. The grants were presented by officials of the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture and the Ministry of Rural Development. In the case of the National Kriol Council, the funding will be used for gardening and to plant fruit trees. Isani Cayetano was present for the grand signing and has this report.

Isani Cayetano, Reporting

Rural development within the Belize District remains ongoing despite all attention being focused on Belize City as the center of commercial activity.  This morning, a trio of organizations endorsed contractual agreements with the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development, the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture and the Central American Agriculture Council.  The National Kriol Council is implementing the project under the theme: Building Resiliency through Food Production and Human Resource Development.

Dana Ramdas

Dana Ramdas, President, National Kriol Council

“For the purpose of this project the Kriol Council is working with three Kriol communities in the Belize District.  The communities are Flowers Bank, Willows Bank and Hattieville Village.  The idea behind the project is that we feel that no one really in this country should basically have to go without food.  At the very least you should be able to go into your backyard and to be able to find something that you can eat or find something that you can sell.  So, what the project will be doing is working with families and schools in these communities to do the backyard gardens, to do the fruit trees and we hope that at the minimum they would be able to have food for the family and in addition that they may be able to sell whatever excess they have.”

According to Ernest Banner, of the Ministry of Labor and Local Government, the grants which amount to a little over a hundred and thirty thousand U.S. dollars will be distributed between the National Kriol Council, Belize Local Fowl Association and Ladies Involved in Nature and Knowledge, respectively.

Ernest Banner

Ernest Banner, Coordinator of Rural Development

“We are signing three contracts with three local groups, three community-based organizations who won the competitive bid for the implementation of the Central American Rural Territorial Development Strategy which is being implemented through the Belize Rural Area-based Development Strategy in Belize.  The three groups are the Belize Local Fowl Association, the Ladies Involved in Nature and Knowledge, LINK, and the National Kriol Council.  The total award is over one hundred, thirty plus thousand U.S. dollars from the fund.  The fund is being supported by the Taiwan government.”

Pastor Maurice Westby is the president Belize Local Fowl Association whose project is the expansion of local fowl and egg production in the Belize District.

Maurice Westby

Pastor Maurice Westby, President, Belize Local Fowl Association

“Like many of us in Belize, we have raised local fowls basically all the days of our lives.  So we just want to do that from the standpoint of commercializing it on the market a little more, to benefit especially housewives who stay at home to raise the fowl.  They’ve already been doing it but we want to expand especially for women and children in the home.  They can assist in doing that.  So that’s the initiative that we do, we had a meeting last year when we formed the local fowl association and we had over a hundred participants and thirty-four people from that group are benefiting, thirty-four households.”

The signing took place this morning at the Black Orchid Resort in Burrell Boom Village. Reporting for News Five, I am Isani Cayetano.