 Raising a New Future
Give a man a chicken and you’ll feed him for a day. Teach him how to raise chickens and he’ll feed his family for a lifetime.” Under this motto, Christian Veterinary Missions of Canada (CVMC) is bringing the promise of a better future to poverty-stricken subsistence farmers in war-ravaged Sierra Leone. “Either this is the Lord’s idea or we are doing it in pure ignorance,” states Ancaster’s Conrad Van Dijk, executive director of CVMC and founder of the Sierra Leone Project. Since 2002 Conrad has visited  Conrad and Anna Van Dijk and Andrew Kamara, who was crippled during the civil war. Sierra Leone has the world’s second lowest per capita income and suffers from endemic official corruption. The average life span is 38 years for men and 42 years for women. During the 1990’s the country suffered an 11-year civil war fuelled by greed and hatred connected with the exploitation of the country’s rich diamond resources. Conrad and his wife, Anna, recommend watching Blood Diamonds (a 2006 Hollywood movie) to grasp the economic situation and the extent of the atrocities. “Actually the movie plays down many of the real horrors,” says Anna. The decade-long war was marked with abductions, maiming, massacres, and village burnings. “The infrastructure of the country was wiped out,” states Conrad. In Blood Diamonds, Danny Archer (played by Leonardo Di Caprio) concludes, “God left this place a long time ago.” But Conrad and Anna are proof that He didn’t. Thirty-eight years ago, in 1969 when they were first married, the Van Dijks travelled to Sierra Leone to spend two years. They worked with Canadian University Service Overseas (CUSO), Conrad as a veterinarian with Njala University College’s agricultural department while Anna taught at the University’s experimental primary school. Their hearts bled for the impoverished people. Anna distinctly remembers Conrad commenting, “We need to help these people. If they could just eat one egg a day....” After a lifetime as a poultry veterinarian in Canada, Conrad revisited Sierra Leone in 2002, just eight months after the end of the civil war. He went to Wellington Orphanage in Freetown where 60 war-orphaned children were being cared for in a four-bedroom house. The children sang, “We welcome you in the name of the Lord, Uncle Conrad.” Describing himself as “a stoic Dutchman, not easily affected,” Conrad admits to becoming undone. These children were living in primitive conditions, begging for food and going to bed hungry. That night Conrad couldn’t sleep. These were obviously Christian children. Where was the God who supplies all their needs? Conrad cried for them. Touring the countryside, Conrad saw the effects of war everywhere.  Conrad Van Dijk explains how to operate a newly-installed feed mill Conrad prayed and called prayer meetings to develop strategy. He readily admits, “I don’t know all the answers.” But, he knows Who does. As a way of life, he looks to God each day for wisdom and guidance. Upon his return to Canada, CVMC sent money to Wellington Orphanage for food and to set up a flock of 200 layer chickens for income and eggs. Conrad’s daughter Shanti organized a program pairing children with sponsors for food, medical care, and education.  Joseph and Moses, managers with the Sierra Leone poultry project, were part of a group that was recently baptized in the ocean. On a follow-up trip to Sierra Leone he hired several nationals to run the poultry project. Conrad hired Joseph Katta, who had worked with him 34 years earlier at Njala University College, and Moses from the farm that had been destroyed. Alpha Abu, a Sierra Leonean Conrad had met at an Alpha course in Ontario in 2001, became the project manager. They founded SCHDO (Sierra Canadian Humanitarian and Development Organization) and came up with criteria to pick farmers. They decided to look for people with low income or no income, and willing and able to cooperate. Candidates would be provided with chicks, chicken feed and vaccines and be trained to do all the work. A pilot project of 50 farmers received chicks from a local hatchery in October 2003. Each farmer raises 100 to 200 broilers for up to two months. At a profit of 50 cents per chicken, each farmer earns $50 to $100 for that two-month period. The farmers are also able to sell the chicken manure and to fertilize their vegetable crops, which means healthier crops for additional profit. Each farmer has the potential to earn as much as any labourer, basic school teacher or government worker in Sierra Leone. SCHDO is looking forward to the day when they will have their own hatchery. Conrad envisions a self-sustaining profitable poultry industry with at least 1,000 farmers raising small to medium-sized poultry flocks on a regular basis for both broiler chickens and egg layers. SCHDO hopes to expand to at least 100 farmers by January, even though the brain-drain during the Sierra Leone war has made it difficult to find good management people. The poultry project includes setting up a hatchery, a feed mill and a processing plant to create a fully integrated poultry farming industry. In 2003 a small feed mill, a small processing plant and a generator were sent to Sierra Leone in a 40-foot container. CVM has sent five such containers, loading them with poultry equipment, and filling leftover space with educational materials, Bibles, medical supplies such as hospital beds and examination tables, tools of all kinds, bicycles and computers. The people of Sierra Leone highly appreciate the donated goods. Conrad reports from his May trip, “I attended two different church services on two  Newlyweds in 1969, Conrad and Anna Van Dijk The Poultry Project is applying to the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) for a grant, possibly up to $500,000 in addition to privately donated funds, to implement a long-range program. In the meantime they depend on private donations. Each farm set-up requires about $1,000 for an initial flock of chickens, feed and supplies.  Mike Tigchelaar, a volunteer from the Waterdown area, works with two men in Sierra Leone to construct a basic chicken barn. Is there hope in Sierra Leone? Conrad reports, “Absolutely. However the masses are still very poor, there are still many beggars along the roads and much sickness. Alpha, Joseph and Moses, and the other people in our SCHDO organization are reconfirming to me how the Lord is calling them to this work, and they are excited about the progress that we are making and filled with hope about the possibility of helping more farmers and more families in need.” To learn more about Christian Veterinary Missions of Canada, or to receive their newsletter, please visit www.cvmcanada.org CLICK HERE TO READ CONRAD VAN DIJK'S REPORT OF HIS NOV. 23-DEC. 23, 2007 TRIP TO SIERRA LEONE |
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