From Chickens to Vegetables: Mama Dama’s Journey Toward a More Sustainable Livelihood
In Kilifi, impact can sometimes look like a flock of chickens. Sometimes it looks like a pile of manure. And sometimes, it looks like a basket of freshly harvested vegetables.
For Mama Dama, one of the first beneficiaries of our poultry programme in Kilifi, Kenya, it has looked like all three.
Her story is one of progress, an unexpected setback, and the determination to start again.
It is also a reminder that when we invest in livelihoods, the impact does not always follow the path we originally imagined.
A promising start
Mama Dama was among the early women to receive support through our poultry programme.
Like the other beneficiaries, she received training designed to help her care for her birds more effectively, reduce preventable losses and gradually turn poultry keeping into a sustainable source of income.
The difference was noticeable.
After the training, mortality among her birds greatly reduced, and Mama Dama nurtured her flock carefully as the birds grew.
For us, this was exactly the kind of progress the programme was designed to encourage: providing knowledge and an initial opportunity, while allowing beneficiaries to gradually take ownership of the livelihood activity.
And Mama Dama was making good use of that opportunity.
The value of a growing flock
As her birds matured, the benefits began extending beyond the chicken coop.
Mama Dama returned around 30 eggs to the foundation, contributing back into the programme.
She also sold a cock to the foundation and sold other birds to help meet the needs of her family — including helping with her children's school fees.
This is an important part of what makes livelihood programmes different from one-off assistance.
A productive asset can generate value in several ways.
For Mama Dama, her birds represented food, potential income, an asset she could sell when necessary, and a way to contribute toward her children's education.
The flock was becoming part of the household economy.
Then something unexpected happened
But livelihoods are rarely straightforward.
Despite the care Mama Dama had given her birds and the progress she had made, something unexpected happened.
The birds began attacking one another, resulting in a number of losses.
For Mama Dama, this was a significant setback.
Importantly, this was not simply a story based on an unverified report. Our monitoring and evaluation (M&E) officer documented what happened. When incidents were reported, members of the team could visit the site(or the birds brought back to our office), take photographs and record the situation, allowing us to verify and keep evidence of the losses.
Today, Mama Dama has four birds remaining.
For a programme focused on sustainability, moments like this matter.
They remind us that supporting livelihoods is not simply about distributing assets and walking away. It is also about monitoring what happens afterwards, understanding challenges as they arise, and learning from what we see on the ground.
A setback does not erase the progress
By this stage, Rare Vrienden had already begun scaling back direct financial support to beneficiaries, with the focus increasingly shifting toward monitoring and understanding whether the projects could sustain themselves.
But Mama Dama's story was different.
She had been one of the programme's most promising early stories. She had nurtured her birds, contributed eggs back into the programme, generated income and used some of the proceeds to support her children's education.
Her setback did not erase that progress.
So, after considering her situation, we felt it was appropriate to help her get back on track with a new batch of birds — while continuing to monitor her progress rather than creating long-term dependence on financial support.
Sometimes sustainability also means giving someone who has demonstrated commitment the opportunity to recover from an unexpected setback.
And then came the manure
But there is another part of Mama Dama's story that might easily be overlooked.
Look closely at what happens around a poultry project, and you begin to see that the value of the birds doesn't necessarily end with eggs, meat or sales.
Mama Dama has accumulated a large heap of poultry manure.
And she hasn't let it go to waste.
She has been using the manure on her vegetable garden — and the garden is thriving.
This is where the story becomes particularly exciting.
The poultry project is no longer just about poultry.
The birds are contributing manure.
The manure is supporting vegetable production.
The vegetables can provide food for the household and can also be sold.
And those sales create another small stream of income.
One livelihood activity is beginning to support another.
From poultry manure to fresh vegetables
We even got to see a small example of this during our visit.
Our field officer, Maggy, purchased KSh 40 worth of managu and spinach directly from Mama Dama's garden.
It may sound like a small transaction.
But small transactions are exactly what local livelihood development is made of.
A beneficiary who initially received support to establish a poultry project is now producing vegetables that someone else is willing to pay for.
And in this case, that someone happened to be a member of our own field team.
It is a simple moment, but it captures something important.
Impact does not always arrive as one large breakthrough. Sometimes it grows quietly through many small connections.
Seeing the bigger picture
Mama Dama's experience is a good example of why livelihood programmes need to be viewed as more than individual activities.
Poultry can contribute eggs.
Birds can be sold when a family needs income.
Income can contribute toward school fees.
Manure can support crop production.
Vegetables can contribute to household food security.
And surplus vegetables can become another source of income.
What begins as a small poultry project can therefore become part of a much wider household livelihood system.
This is the kind of progress we want to understand and support: not simply whether a beneficiary still has chickens, but whether the initial investment is creating new opportunities around it.
Day 1: Seeing the work on the ground
23/09/2026
Mama Dama's story is also one of the stories being encountered during Day 1 of a nine-day field visit by our Chairman.
The visit is part of our regular effort to visit, interact with beneficiaries and communities, and inspect the progress of the work being carried out on the ground.
There is something different about seeing development work in person.
Reports and monitoring records are important. Photographs and figures are important. But sitting with beneficiaries, seeing their projects, asking questions and listening to what has happened since support was provided adds another dimension to understanding impact.
Mama Dama's four remaining birds, her manure heap and her thriving vegetable garden tell a story that a single number never could.
What Mama Dama's story teaches us
Mama Dama's journey is not a perfect success story.
And that is precisely why it is worth sharing.
There was progress.
There was income.
There were eggs returned to the programme.
There was support for school fees.
Then there was an unexpected loss.
And now, there is another opportunity to rebuild — alongside a vegetable garden that is already demonstrating an unexpected benefit of the poultry project.
For us, this is what meaningful impact looks like.
It is progress that can be measured, challenges that can be documented, lessons that can be learned, and people who are given the opportunity to keep moving forward.
Most importantly, it shows what can happen when livelihood support is designed not simply to provide something today, but to create the possibility of something that can continue tomorrow.
A small flock. A growing livelihood.
Mama Dama currently has four birds.
But when we look at her story, we see much more than four chickens.
We see the knowledge she gained through training.
We see the eggs she was able to produce.
We see the birds she sold.
We see the school fees those sales helped support.
We see the manure being returned to the soil.
We see spinach and managu growing in her garden.
And we see a woman who, despite an unexpected setback, has another opportunity to build again.
That is why livelihood development matters.
Because sometimes, the biggest impact is not the asset itself.
It is what that asset makes possible.
Help us create more opportunities like this
Mama Dama's story is just one example of the potential that exists when families are given the tools, knowledge and opportunity to build sustainable livelihoods.
Across Kilifi, we want to continue supporting approaches that strengthen household resilience, improve food security and create opportunities for people to generate their own income.
If you would like to support this work, partner with Rare Vrienden, or learn more about our programmes, we would love to hear from you.
Learn more about our work → https://www.rarevrienden.org/agriculture-innovation
Support our work → https://www.rarevrienden.org/donate
Get in touch →https://www.rarevrienden.org/contact
Together, we can help turn small opportunities into sustainable livelihoods.
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