Household Approach unlocks better living standards for the Ng’ambis
Living in the outskirts of Karonga town in the northern part of Malawi, Vinicent Ng’ambi and his family lived a tough life. A day with one meal was one of their luckiest days. Many times, they could sleep on an empty stomach.
Vincent and his wife Ethel together with their six children were one of the families considered to be least privileged in Mchenjere village, Paramount Chief Kyungu. The family lived in a small single-bedroom house built with unburnt bricks and thatched with grass. The house could leak during rainy season.
Their main source of income used to be subsistence farming, beer brewing by the wife and cattle herding by the husband, all often regarded as the least paying income generating activities.
Their poverty level that time did not stop them from dreaming. As a family they still hoped for a better life despite going through some challenges. One common thing they aspired was for them to have a better house.
A better life for the Ng’ambis started sprouting in 2022, when Programme for Rural Irrigation Development (PRIDE) with funding from the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) came into Lupembe Extension Planning Area (EPA) in Karonga.
According to Phillip Munthali, Agriculture Extension Development Coordinator for the EPA, PRIDE introduced several interventions aimed at enhancing food, nutrition and income security as well as building resilience to climate change shocks and vagaries of the market amongst the smallholder farmers through irrigated farming.
“With support from PRIDE, we trained people in the farming communities on how to employ farming resilient strategies such as construction of swales, check dams and use of conservation agriculture (CA) which helps to retain moisture and reduce soil erosion” said Munthali.
The programme also promoted the use of manure and planting of early maturing crops and Ng’ambi’s household was selected as one of the beneficiaries of the interventions.
“Among other issues, we were taught the Household Approach, an extension methodology which promotes management of a household using means of participatory decision making, gender balance in the distribution of roles and benefits as well as fostering family focus in development through a jointly developed household vision,” explained Ng’ambi.
He added that they were specifically trained on joint decision making so that household decisions should not be made by the husband alone but together with the wife and even children at the relevant stage.
Eventually, the Ng’ambi household adopted the HHA and started making decisions as a family. They also drew their family vision which they are now following.
For Ng’ambi, 2022 was a year of rising since his family had found a guide on how they could maximize the few resources they had for family development through lessons offered by PRIDE.
“Through lessons from PRIDE, we were empowered on how to be creative in sourcing funds. We had a cow which I got as a payment from herding cattle per year, so as a family, we decided to sell it and use the money to buy iron sheets for completing the house. I did not agree fully with the decision to sell the cow as I had a dream to own a big herd myself in future. However, I respected the desire of my wife and children to live in a house with iron sheets. Today the house is finished,” said Ng’ambi.
While Ethel is still brewing beer for sale for daily household needs and the husband is still herding cattle so that he earns another cow, the family managed to buy a plough which is mainly for renting. This is one way of increasing income for the household.
“The good living standards of our family has been made possible by PRIDE since the program brought to us the knowledge of managing our households using HHA,” says Ethel.