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Wednesday, January 5, 2011 - SMART Goals

By Shelly Tregembo

Today Chuck and I took the stage at the community meetings to discuss goal setting and business plans. I started the meeting by discussing the importance of setting good goals. I introduced the idea of SMART goals. SMART is an acronym for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Time-bound. Getting these concepts across proved a little difficult since there is no direct translation in Lusoga for "goal" or "objective." Patrick, our host and skilled interpreter, figured out a way to explain in a way that seemed to resonate with the participants.

I gave the example of having a big, overarching objective to improve the health of my family. Within that objective, I outlined three goals: build a latrine, grow some amaranth and keep the animals away from the house. I had volunteers from the audience help to make each of the goals SMART-er. When would I build the latrine? How much amaranth would I grow and where? After it seemed like everyone was getting the concept, I took an example of a goal from the audience. A young man, Jimmy, had decided that his objective was to become a driver. His first goal was to purchase a boda boda (motorcycle) and his second goal (with some cajoling) was to get a driver’s license. The group assisted him in making his driving goal SMART. What kind of motorcycle? He decided he would like a new, blue, Indian brand motorcycle. When? Jimmy decided that he would like to have his boda boda by May. I pointed out that he wasn’t going to walk outside in May and magically find a motorcycle waiting for him, so he would need to set some goals regarding how he would get the boda boda. Everyone seemed to enjoy the example and I ended by telling them that it’s important to share their goals with others. By sharing their goals, their community can help support them and hold them accountable. Good luck to Jimmy and his driving dream!!!

Wednesday, January 5, 2011 - Coast to Coast

By Chuck DuVivier

My workday started with a drive over to Malima for the first of four farm visits. My idea was to start early, say eight, and then drive to all the remote locations and still have plenty of time spend at each farm. But things usually don't work out just like that. We got to our first visit, the farming being done by a church lay-minister, at about ten-thirty. We saw some nice turkeys and heard about the difficulty of rearing them, saw some cassava harvesting and some two-year old pine trees that were over six feet in height. Then we moved on to our next stop, on the peninsula northeast of Nkondo trading center. Here we met with a farmer who had heard about our training sessions only recently and attended his first session just yesterday. He was described as a "progressive farmer" and indeed he was. He had an orange orchard that was clean and weed free, and he has been selling fruit for several years. He also has a Friesan cow from which he claims production of 22 litres/day . He also has a well bred, year old Friesan bull, given to him because of his progressive farming by the president of Uganda. He intends to use the bull for servicing cows (10,000UGX/service) which is cheaper and more reliable that artificial insemination (25,000UGX). He had a milking corral and was feeding chopped elephant grass and sweet potato tops as a supplement. He also alerted us to two other farmers whom he considered progressive and which we needed to visit.

This suggestion led us further east to visit a nice banana plantation and review the next farmer's practices. He explained that he had been dumping 20 litters of water per day on each plant during the dry spell but had switched to 3 three litre jugs that dripped during the night and had much better results. He is expanding his bananas, treating for banana weevil and selecting successive sprouts to time his production without trying to over-produce from any single plant at one time. He also grows lots of cassava and cotton but declared his preference for the bananas as the easiest to raise with the best chance for a higher return.

We then went to a third progressive farmer to look at his young orange orchard, intercropped with sorghum and other crops. During my training session on water management, I had suggested diverting runoff from roads and paths onto gardens and crops as a way to harvest water and this farmer was already using this practice. Every tree adjacent to the road had a diversion channel directly to it which was of benefit to the trees and kept the road from washing out as well. He was intercropping part of the grove with cotton which his children are supposed to pick and then use as an income source for their education. His land went all the way to the shore of Lake Kyoga where we went to see the boats and fish nets. Land along the shore is communal and open grazing by anyone who has cattle even though it is usually privately owned, so there were a bunch of boys moving cattle back and forth and the grass looked like a moved lawn. Lack of plentiful water sources led me to downplay the possibility for irrigation in Immeri Parish, but here by the lake, irrigation is something that really should be developed. There's lots of water and the terrain is level, so pumping would require less power.

Our training session today started with Shelly talking about setting goals, defining goals and S.M.A.R.T. goals. The audience was attentive and had good responses to her questions. She singled out a young man who wanted to own a boda-boda (motorbike) to use as a business and then help him set goals and the steps and timeline for owning one. My session followed and outlined the steps and parts for creating a business plan. I brought up the aspiring boda-boda driver and had him answer questions about the business, his potential competition, how he might specialize and what his costs, prices and marketing plan might reveal. He was very embarrassed that he was the center of attention and kept lowering and covering his head, so we all encouraged him to sit up tall and confidently explain how he would be a great driver and worthy of getting a loan for his business. The session introduced a lot of new concepts to the crowd but were well received. Most enterprises here start just because someone feels like starting it, little planning goes into the decision.

Since we had not finished our last two scheduled project visits, we then headed west to Iringa trading center and stopped at a carpenter's shop which was fairly devoid of tools. Planks are cut from logs with big chainsaws and then planed by hand to finish them. Because of the lack of good mill saws, planers and sizers, only very crude furniture is built and a board might be 3/4" on one side but 1 1/2" on the other. I wished the owner luck. We also stopped to get some meat, which was hanging there, but the butcher was not there to sell it.

Further west at Kasuku A trading center, we looked at another private primary school. With other private schools, my quick cash flow estimates showed that the businesses would be profitable as long as the figures supplied to us were realistic. Here, the headmaster/owner reported that they were having problems because only 60% of the students were paying fees and break-even comes at about 90% and we explained that we were not giving grants or handouts. Microcredit business loans will be available but his enterprise and management had to point to a profitable outcome.

We headed further west to see a "general farm" which didn't offer much to see except that someone had collected a huge pile of plastic with the intention of recycling although most of it is probably not reusable. Since we were so close to the Nile, we went over to see it and thus gone from the east coast of the peninsula all the way to the west coast. Here children were filling jerrycans from the river and there were reports (though not recent) of crocodiles and hippos. Cars and light skinned Americans are pretty rare in that area so of course we had a lot of followers running behind the car as headed back to Patrick's house, arriving just at dusk.