Vijana Twaweza community chicken-farming training: refugee-led development in Kakuma Refugee Camp

In recent years, refugee-led organisations have gained greater acceptance and recognition in the global humanitarian and development sectors for their ability to enable and drive sustainable solutions on the ground. However, despite the accolades, refugee-led organisations, and community-based initiatives more generally, remain relatively underfunded, accessing just $26.4 million of globally available development funding – 10 times less than the amount accessed by local and national non-governmental organisations.

As many of us who work in international development will know, funding directly given to on-the-ground initiatives is often more effective than funding filtered through large development organisations. Refugee-led organisations and other grassroots initiatives tend to waste fewer resources and often know better where to focus the funding than someone based in a faraway office. Additionally, the money and other resources given to grassroots initiatives often serve as a foundation upon which future development will take place in ways that other approaches do not.

This article presents one such initiative, a chicken-farming training programme for refugee women in Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya set up and run by Vijana Twaweza Community (VTC), a refugee-led, community-based organisation. Formed in 2018 by young people living in the camp, VTC brings people from various refugee communities together to raise fish and fowl and grow vegetables, to combat undernutrition and reduce dependency in the camp. Having organised various local farming projects since 2018, VTC expanded its development efforts to include a training programme in 2024. With €3,200 of funding received from Crédit Agricole Assurances and Dublin City University, VTC successfully trained 10 women heads of households in the camp to become chicken farmers and equipped them with the resources to set up their own farms, to contribute to their communities’ sustainable development.

Life in Kakuma

Located in Northwestern Kenya, Kakuma is home to over 295,000 people from 24 different ethnic communities. The camp was first established in the early 1990s and has grown rapidly in recent years as a response to drought, famine, poverty, war and other problems wreaking havoc in East Africa. Life in Kakuma is difficult, with extreme poverty and hunger affecting most people. The recent drought and ongoing political strife in East Africa have exacerbated conditions in the camp. In 2024 alone, the camp’s population increased by 37% as many more people sought sanctuary within its confines. While basic rations of flour, sugar and cooking oil are provided by the World Food Programme, the pressure of increased numbers of refugees and other geopolitical and economic factors has resulted in food rations being slashed by 60%. Anecdotally, there is a growing realisation amongst people in the camp that the international community is not going to save the day and that refugees will increasingly have to find their own solutions if they are to stave off hunger and forge a better future for themselves. It is within the context of growing food insecurity and an increased awareness of the precariousness of dependency in the camp that VTC initially set about enabling grassroots agricultural development in the camp. The successful establishment of its farming endeavours (including a fish farm, a vegetable garden, and a cricket, rabbit and duck farm) enabled VTC to move to the next development step, by gathering and cultivating its members’ knowledge, skills and connections to develop the blueprint for a chicken-farming training programme for the wider Kakuma community in 2024. By focusing on training female heads of households, VTC not only focused on the immediate food insecurity of some of Kakuma’s most needy single-parent families, but also began to address the marginalisation of women within the complex social structures of the various ethnic communities present in the camp.

Chicken-farming training

Phase 1

Following the successful awarding of funding from Crédit Agricole Assurances and additional funds raised by Dublin City University in early 2024, VTC established the training programme in March 2024. On a small plot of land allocated to VTC by the Jesuit Refugee Services, a training demonstration site was constructed to raise chickens and deliver lessons to the participants on how to become chicken farmers. Sourcing building materials (cement, chicken mesh wire, scaffolding, wooden frames, corrugated iron, chicken feeders, water troughs and heaters to keep the young chickens warm) locally in nearby Kakuma town, VTC members constructed the chicken-training demonstration site themselves. At the same time as construction was taking place, recruitment of participants in the project began. VTC employed its network of partners and community leaders in the camp to seek applicants – including the Jesuit Refugee Services, the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and the World Food Programme office in Kakuma.

At the end of April 2024, when the chicken coop and demonstration site were successfully constructed, 300 one-day-old chickens were sourced from Eldoret city. Eldoret city is about five hours’ drive from Kakuma, but was the closest the programme leaders could find. Prior to their arrival in Kakuma, sufficient chicken feed and vaccines were sourced locally in Kakuma town to give the chickens the best possible start in life. On arrival in Kakuma, and once settled into their chicken coop, the training phase of the programme began.

Phase 2

VTC launched the chicken-farming training lessons in May 2024 when 10 refugee women from different ethnic communities living in Kakuma were recruited to take part in the project. With the guidance of a veterinarian, a learning specialist and local farmers, VTC developed a learning programme to equip the participants with the knowledge and skills they would need to become chicken farmers. This training was delivered in Kiswahili (the language spoken by the majority of people in Kakuma Refugee Camp) and the Dinka language for participants from South Sudan. It was delivered over eight weeks at VTC’s demonstration site in Kakuma Refugee Camp from May to June 2024. During the training, the participants were introduced to various topics such as using incubators to hatch chickens, the importance of keeping newborn chickens comfortable and safe, different approaches to rearing chickens, and how to feed young chickens so that they grow into healthy egg-producing hens.

The following table outlines the learning objectives and outcomes of the training programme for each of the eight weeks that the participants attended lessons at the demonstration site.

Phase 3

Following the initial training phase of the programme, the participants were given materials (fencing, corrugated iron, cement, and drinking and feeding troughs) and were supported in making their own chicken farms at home. They were then given 10 three-month old chickens each to take home and rear to maturity under the supervision of their trainers from VTC. From June–September 2024, trainers from VTC paid bi-weekly visits to each of the participants’ homes to distribute chicken feed for the growing chickens and to help with any issues the new farmers were experiencing.

From five months of age the chickens started to lay eggs. While these eggs are a welcome source of additional food to feed the participants’ families, some participants began to sell excess eggs in the local market. With a lot of experience in selling food in Kakuma, VTC members provided extra support to these participants to help their businesses thrive.

The way forward in 2025

Having finished the training programme successfully, the 10 women who participated in it have gone on to become independent chicken farmers in Kakuma. They are farming chickens that produce eggs, which helps them feed their families. They are also raising some much-needed income for their households through the sale of excess eggs in the local marketplace. Beyond these immediate benefits, the programme is having a ripple effect in Kakuma, with many people inquiring if they can take part in future chicken-farming training. Bearing in mind the increase in people coming to the camp seeking sanctuary, the drastic reduction in food rations given to residents and the harsh climatic conditions which make other forms of agriculture difficult in Kakuma, there is a greater need for alternative food sources than ever before. Farming chickens that are suited to Kakuma’s difficult conditions (as practiced by VTC), when done right, could provide a quick and efficient solution to the growing levels of hunger in the camp.

Given this demand and VTC’s proven capacity to drive grassroots development, Crédit Agricole Assurances has recently awarded VTC funding to scale up its efforts by training 30 new farmers in 2025. In addition, VTC plans to develop its own chicken-hatching site so that it can start supplying a growing network of chicken farms in Kakuma, thus reducing costs for the farmers and helping to generate much-needed agricultural, economic and social development in the camp. Currently, chicken farming is practiced by relatively few people living in the camp, with the majority of meat and eggs available in the local market sourced from far away cities such as Lodwar and Eldoret. As the protracted nature of refugee life in Kakuma intensifies and its population increases, local food solutions such as the VTC chicken-farming project will need to be scaled up if hunger is to be kept at bay.

The success of VTC’s chicken-farming training programme, and indeed its other farming projects, shows what can be achieved with relatively small amounts of funding, when it is channelled in the right direction. It may seem obvious to many of us who work in development that grassroots initiatives are often the best and most sustainable approaches to take for longer-lasting and more successful development. However, despite (or perhaps in spite of) the overwhelming evidence that supports positive changes beginning at the local level, traditional development funding models are slow to adapt. If we as a community of development practitioners want to change this by advocating for better and more sustainable development, then it is time that we re-focus on and reinforce the strengthening and resourcing of our colleagues on the ground.

Dr Paul O’Keeffe is Head of Education and Research at Airfield Estate, a sustainable agriculture and food education and research institute in Dublin. He is also an advisor and contributor to Vijana Twaweza Community, with whom he has worked with since 2018.