What Came First, The Chicken Or the Egg?

This question has been asked by children for generations and now the students of Hannah Senesh Community Day School have an answer. For the past three years they have been raising funds to support a sustainable solution to the problem of chronic hunger for the 800 students at Matale Hill Primary School.

In partnership with Mrs. Saidat Ssenteza, the owner of a poultry farm in the Masaka District of Uganda, Positive Planet has began a business venture that we hope will provide sufficient revenue to support a school lunch program at Matale Hill.  This is the first of several projects that we are initiating that focus on business-non-profit partnerships that invest in the local economy while providing much needed funds to achieve our goals.

Creative partnerships are a key component to our strategy to make an impact on the lives of Uganda’s children. With Eggmodule.org, a project that focuses on providing non-profit organizations and social entrepreneurs with the tools to develop and manage sustainable poultry businesses, we have found a powerful partner for changing the lives of thousands of students and their families. In February, after years of careful planning, we finally purchased 3600 chickens to begin our pilot project.

What came first the chicken or the egg? For Positive Planet’s Poultry Project the chickens definitely come first.

Meeting w/Matale Hill Parents to Discuss Chronic Hunger

A recent survey of the head teachers of Positive Planet’s five Ugandan sister schools revealed that approximately 80% of our children do not eat lunch on a daily basis. Chronic hunger negatively impacts the health of our children and also has a profound effect on their ability to learn. Positive Planet co-founders Drs Daniel Murokora and Marc Sklar recently met with over 20 parents of our first sister school, the St. Andrews Matale Hill Primary School to discuss this serious problem. In a 2 hour meeting many of the difficult issues that underlie the problem of chronic hunger were discussed. Extreme poverty limits many of our parents’ ability to provide lunch for their children. The fact that over 50% of our children are orphans, often being cared for by elderly relatives with limited resources, also impacts their ability to fully address this dilemma. By the conclusion of our meeting it was clear that any solution would require full partnership with the entire school community. Positive Planet is always seeking creative partnerships to assist in the realization of our mission. To address this serious problem we are working with Egg Module.Org to begin researching the feasibility of establishing a small scale cooperative poultry farm. Our goal is to help create a sustainable business model which will support a school lunch program for the students of Matale Hill. For more information about The Egg Module, visit their web site.