By Salome Gangire

Neno, October 5, Mana: Link Community Development Malawi (LCDM) through its Climate Just Communities project has distributed 600 goats to 120 households in Neno District valued at K6 million on a pass on initiative.

The initiative, which has seen each household receiving five goats, is aimed at improving climate justice and resilience for smallholder farmers. 

Speaking during the distribution exercise Friday at Kasamba Clinic in the area of Traditional Authority (TA) Symon, Link Community Development Malawi Project Manager, Clement Mwazambumba, said the initiative is within the project’s theme of “Livelihoods Security” and intervention of sustainable agriculture and food security.

“The initiative is focused on promoting sustainable livestock farming by assisting with the acquisition and distribution of goats to selected farmer groups,” he said.

He said the initiative prioritized the most vulnerable and marginalized farmers in the farmers group, which include youths, female-headed homes and people with disabilities as one way of promoting inclusion and leaving no one behind in sustainable development.

Mwazambumba said the farmers will also pass on the offspring to other farmers within the group, which will then create a self-sustaining cycle of empowerment and resilience.

He said farmers were also trained on goat care, breeding and sustainable livestock management for them to successfully implement the initiative.

Director of Planning and Development for Neno, Charles Lomoni, said the initiative will greatly improve local farmers livelihood as they will benefit from the economic value of goats through milk, manure and potential sales.

A beneficiary from Manyenje Village in TA Symon, Mary White, expressed excitement saying the program is timely as it will help her make enough savings to enable her pay her children’s school fees who will soon be going to secondary school.

LCDM in collaboration with DAI UK Global with funding from United Scottish Government is implementing a two-year Climate Just Communities project in TA Symon to address challenges impeding community development resulting from adverse impacts of climate change.

The project's objectives include empowering local communities to identify and prioritize climate-related challenges, enabling marginalized groups to take proactive measures in tackling these issues and fostering community advocacy for sustainable change.