Poultry Keeping & Farming Support

Poultry Keeping and Farming Support – River Rare Project

The Rare Vrienden Foundation has made steady progress in its mission to empower rural communities along River Rare in Kilifi through sustainable agriculture and women-led enterprise.

From the project’s inception, the foundation installed a solar-powered irrigation system to sustain continuous crop production throughout the year. The farm operates on rotational growing cycles, ensuring steady food supply and income for the participating women. It currently produces eggplants, spinach, maize, and fruits such as bananas, watermelon, and passion fruit. In the second half of 2025, the focus has been on watermelon cultivation, with harvest expected before December 2025.

Poultry Empowerment Program – Launched 2025

In 2025, Rare Vrienden introduced a new initiative to expand women’s income opportunities: the Poultry Empowerment Program. This program specifically targets single mothers and women with absentee partners, helping them build reliable livelihoods from poultry keeping.

The foundation has begun by constructing 10 chicken coops across different compounds in the Kilifi area and procuring a modern incubator to improve hatching efficiency and reduce costs.

The incubator—located at Point Zero (Jonathan’s office)—can hatch up to 100 chicks every 16-21 days. Once hatched, chicks are moved to Julius’s brooding center, where they are raised until ready for distribution. Each participating woman receives ten chicks per month, creating a structured and scalable system of empowerment.

Beyond production, Rare Vrienden actively supports market access and fair pricing for both eggs and poultry meat, ensuring the women earn sustainable income and build self-sufficiency.

The ultimate goal is economic independence—empowering women to feed their families, clothe their children, pay school fees, and grow financially through local savings groups (chamas).

The River Rare project stands as a model of integrated rural development, proving that with solar power, training, and coordinated community effort, women in Kilifi can transform farming and poultry keeping into thriving, sustainable enterprises.