Background In July 2018, heavy rains and debris brought from the hills breached the hydro-electric power dam of two rivers, Xe Pian- Xe Namnoy. This resulted in flash floods which swept away 13 villages leaving thousands homeless in Sanamxai district. The first team from CREST led by CK Cheong supplied essential commodities to affected communities in Sanamxai, Attapeu province.
Objective
1. To distribute 1,000 chickens to the affected in Pindong village.
2. To conduct rapid assessment of the chicken given in Hinlat & Donbook village in Jan and may 2019 respectively.
3. To assess other areas of needs.
Team Members
Team Leader: Dr Yoong Sao Chin
Assistant / Logistics: Edward Tan
Photographer: Tan Bee Hoon
Journalist: Rebekah Loh
Activities
Livelihood Development, Hygiene kits Distribution and Assessment
Location: Village of Pindong in Attapeu, Sanamxai, Laos
Local Partner: Pastor Onechan Thongkham, Savannakhet
After some deliberation we felt that income generation or sustainable programs will be more impactful to these communities who had lost everything and were being housed in temporary shelters by the Laos government.
Our livelihood projects were as follows:
Prior to this our local partner, Pastor Onchanh, has conducted follow up with beneficiaries in the village of Hinlat and found that 80% of the chickens distributed have begun to have offspring and are in healthy condition. He also received positive feedback from the beneficiaries that they value this form of aid. It is sustainable and promotes self-reliance. Nevertheless, an objective assessment and a visual walkabout was needed to be carried out to verify the above claims.
Costs of 1,000 Chickens
Costing of Hygiene Kits:
Our findings:
This rapid survey was done non randomly among a small sample population size of ten per village due to time constraints. A visual walk about was done since there are many biases or flaws in this survey.
This is our ground assessment of the livestock distribution to the two villages Hinlat & Donbook which received nine and ten chicken, one year and eight months ago respectively.
The population of chickens in both villages dramatically increased by 70% and 90% respectively. On the average only fewer than four chickens per family were consumed over that period of time. The mortalities were low and most families manage to obtain 12 eggs per month.
The feeds given lasted for three months in 60 – 70% of households and 80 - 90% of them purchased feeds after their stocks were finished. Some villagers said that they managed to sell up to 4 chickens over this period of time.
The survey of goods consumption revealed that Hinlat was socioeconomically slightly better off than Donbook.
Overall the distributed six week old chickens yielded excellent results. This is a good platform for future sustainable livestock project that can be initiated by CREST in any disaster areas where people could benefit economically and nutritionally from these distributed livestock.
Chicken Distributed in 2019
Chicken Now
Summary
1 This project is unique where the follow up was concerned. The team visited the same villages where distribution was done. The survey forms and visual walk-about was instituted to reduce bias in the evaluation. Whether the figures were accurate, it can be debatable but the flourishing numbers of chickens in the villages were unmistakable at 70% and 90% increase which can acceptable.
2. The benefit : cost ratio works out to be 0.89 (0.67+0.14+0.08). That means that 89 cents reaches the local communities for every ringgit donated. This is an efficient delivery of our CREST services to the communities.
3. Finally we can conclude livestock breeding is a viable and sustainable project. Even though we had similar projects in Nepal earthquake we had no systematic follow up studies due to limited funding in the income generation projects. I strongly recommend similar projects with live animal stocks in future disaster areas.
Submitted by Dr Yoong
Date: 23-Feb-2020
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