St Francis Health Care Services

following the routine weekly field outreaches in the community for voluntary counseling and testing, i realized that some of our community liaison volunteers who mobilized these outreaches were heavily burdened with endless care of their grand children who were orphaned when their parents died (the children of the grand mothers), needed school fees, food and education support yet their grannies were getting more feeble by the day due to aging. after learning how to grow mushrooms at church as a youth project, i thought that it would be a good idea for grannies who are weak to do such a profitable project yet not as labor intensive or expensive as others such as rearing pigs and commercial chicken breeds. so, following the annual recruitment of overseas volunteers who carry out mandatory community projects in local communities as part of their academic requirements for their undergraduate degree, i mobilized the grannies in their weekly peer group meetings and threw the idea to them and some were willing to do the project. when the volunteers came along for an eight week long visit (from North Western- Chicago), they also found it good to do the project. they helped the grannies to build mushroom houses and prepare the mushrooms. the grannies were actively learning while working with the lads and ladies. it was fun for all of us. A month after the volunteers had gone, the mushrooms were ready for harvesting everyday,for food and for sale. the grannies employed their grand children to package and sell the mushrooms while they ate some. After three months, they had been able to save up some money for another round of seeds which they did on their own and had also not lacked an alternative source of stew.they had also been able to have some money available to buy a pen and exercise book for the children whenever they needed it their children had learned how to grow mushrooms too and some skills in marketing food stuffs. they were busy and so this saved them from ganging up with bad groups in their village. Other grannies saw the project and requested St. francis to teach them too. Thanks to the volunteers, they had written a manual on how to grow mushrooms. It was easy to teach another group, even by the help of an inexperienced person. It was a wonderful experience.