Brief Explanation of RDEs and CNHWs
RDEs (Rural Development Extensionists) and CNHWs (Community Nutrition and Health Workers) are farmers from the villages of Kamuli district who receive training and equipment from VEDCO in exchange for providing volunteer extension services to their fellow farmer group members and other community members. Farmer groups select these volunteers through a participatory process. Currently there are 46 RDEs and 29 CNHWs in Kamuli district, and about 70 farmer groups.
This farmer-to-farmer approach encourages sustainability and maximizes farmer contacts.
Training
RDEs and CNHWs have a two-year training period, using materials development by VEDCO. RDEs learn from up to ten modules, including topics such as: post harvest management, livestock production (cattle, sheep/goats, rabbits, poultry, pigs, bee keeping), animal health and diseases, farm business education, and natural resource management. The training also includes "exposure visits" to other areas where the farmer-to-farmer approach is being used. RDEs adopt new practices after exposure visits; these visits seem to motivate RDEs in their roles as well.
CNHWs are a relatively new form of volunteer extension with VEDCO. CNHWs learn from up to eight modules, with including such topics as: assessing nutritional status, nutrition and HIV/AIDS, nutritional management of HIV/AIDS- related complications, nutritional counseling for people living with HIV/AIDS. CNHWs may participate in exposure visits as well.
Tool kits
RDEs and CNHWs are supplied with tool kits that enable them to serve their communities and help motivate these volunteers in their work. The contents vary based on need and are supplied over the course of the two-year training.
For RDEs the tool kits may include: wheelbarrows, spades, garden forks, watering cans, bicycles, manure drums, mud boots. The bicycles are important because the farmer group members are not necessarily close neighbors.
For CNHWs, the tool kits may include: wooden measuring boards, overall coats, weighing scales, gumboots, calculators, gloves, manure drums, and watering cans.
Demonstrations
RDEs and CNHWs create "demonstration gardens" and livestock structures in their own fields, to practice what they've learned, and as a model for other farmer group members. The RDEs' demonstration gardens include crops and livestock chosen by the farmer groups through participatory methods.
Demonstrations at CNHWs' homes are used to teach the importance of different nutrients in diets, and are set up for micronutrient- and protein-rich crops and livestock. The gardens often serve a "multiplication" role as well - providing good quality planting materials for member farms. Surplus production is used to benefit the group members. The crops are divided among members, or sometimes sold and the proceeds invested to benefit the group by, for example, purchasing a goat.
In addition to the demonstration gardens, practical training sessions on food preparation and utilization -- with special focus on diets for HIV/AIDS infected persons, under 5 year-olds, nursing mothers, other special-needs groups, sanitation, and value addition -- is conducted with group members.
RDEs also build small gazebo-like buildings on their property, at their own expense, for the farmer groups to meet in.
