Bwindi-Buhoma United Reformed Poachers Initiative recently supported the community organized groups using the support grant from various small grants for nature conservation. About five groups each composed of Fifteen to Twenty people were involved in this event. Our selection criterion was that for a group to be considered for an award, it must meet the following requirements; be registered with the government, be already doing some activities or planning to start, be willing to keep pigs communally and be willing to come for training and also welcome the training team in their group. Typically the program targeted groups that are Reformed poacher, Batwa Pygmies initiated, woman lead and youth initiatives.
On 26th November 2019 all the groups had been selected, trained and given information about the benefits for conservation of nature, so they were given their pig pairs on that day. Currently the organization is carrying out a monitoring exercise, but the findings from the field is that women groups perform better than other groups Batwa Pygmies have the second position while the youth perform poorly compared to the rest.
We continue to boast the groups that are doing better with high levels of success and encourage those whose performance is low. This is done through developing mutual relationships, learning things together and trying new methods and ideas. We provide additional technical support, and materialistic in-puts are provided to unlock any challenges that may limit them to go to the next level.
