They have rented a small space to start their own garden area.
They will be allowed to grow what ever they wish in their garden.
They must care completely on their own for their garden covering all costs from the seeds to the fertilizer.
How ever they also will keep all the money from their sales.
With this project we hope they will use the many skills we have given them. We hope this will teach them greater responsibility, finances, time management, and giving them the confidence that they can do these things with out our help. Hopefully that will also make all other farm classes much more valuable to them.
The children are allowed to grow and easy crop for up to half their land. This happens to be the morning glory/unchoi that we already grow because it grows like a weed. They can use this to feed their own animals that they have such as chickens. An easy crop such as this requires little time from them and assures them some kind of return about .12$ a week.
The other half of the land they rented will have to be planted with any thing they wish. This makes sure they have to work for their funds and that they have to grow something that may be more of a challenge to them. It also adds risk to their project.
The rent is .50$ a meter half of their months allowance. So most of the children only have one meter to start. Some of the children shared the space to cut the cost and labor. If things go well for them they will recover the cost with in the month. Two of our children have been saving for this and have started with 5 meters.
They all have different ideas of what they want to grow. One child wants to grow a small red chilly because they can sell them for .02$ each and there is a lot on one bush. Another group is going to grow spinach.
They each will keep a record book to keep track of their time and money. Hopefully they will come to their own conclusion of what is worth growing and what is not. How long it takes to grow something and how much they can sell it for will be important.
Some of what they sell will be whole sale to our kitchen. Some things they will have to take to the market and sell it to the vendor for a suitable price. Some of the children are hoping to eat their own produce.
Some of the children have chosen not to participate yet. They either did not save their money and spent it on cookies, or the have no time because of school or they are to lazy and do not wish to work any harder than they do already.
I hope that the first groups income will encourage others to change their mind.
Also I will be shifting their work away from the orphanages animals giving them time to spend on their own animals. This will also bring a change in their allowance income as they will be doing less for us and more for themselves.
Our other goal is to help the children start a savings account with the bank in town.
So we will see how it goes.
A little bit of fun. We had been going at each other with water balloons when I made a switch to shaving cream. Then we it turned into hand to hand combat with Long taking the most damage.
Sam wounds were self inflicted.
A friend at church was kind enough to help me find the exact link to our property on Google Earth.
http://maps.google.com/maps?
I hope this makes the last blog a little easier.
I will be posting again shortly.
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