David's travels for Rewrite the Future

by Rewrite the Future Director, David Skinner

. Children, Chickens and Income Generation in Wulungo
. Blog by David: A Journey from DRC to Rwanda
. Blog by David: Children Catching Up in Uganda

Children, Chickens and Income Generation in Wulungo

We were met by chickens at a school in Wulungu, in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The reception class consisted of rows of well behaved seven and eight year olds and about 30 less well behaved chickens and chicks. There was no teacher and neither the Head nor the students were able to provide a very good explanation as to what was going on. We soon discovered the students thought it better to keep the chickens in the reception classroom rather than on their own outside, and we were treated to a fairly intimate introduction to the individual chickens!  

We found out that the chickens were part of the school's income generation activities. Save the Children Australia had provided funds for start up capital for a school shop and a school herd of goats. The students had said they wanted to join in and so some chickens had been included in the scheme and the chickens had multiplied.

The reason that the Reception Teacher was not in the class room was that she - as the only female member of staff - had been told to prepare our lunch!