The La­dy Ho­choy South Home in Gas­par­il­lo re­cent­ly launched its Healthy Ed­u­ca­tion Nu­tri­tion Project.

Apt­ly named Project H.E.N., the ini­tia­tive is fund­ed through the In­no­va­tion Chal­lenge for Per­sons with Dis­abil­i­ties, a $600,000 in­vest­ment part­ner­ship be­tween the Dig­i­cel Foun­da­tion and the Glob­al En­vi­ron­ment Fa­cil­i­ty Small Grants Pro­gramme (GEF-SGP).

Project H.E.N. in­te­grates poul­try farm­ing, vo­ca­tion­al skills train­ing and agri­cul­tur­al ed­u­ca­tion to fos­ter in­de­pen­dence, con­fi­dence and em­ploy­ment readi­ness among per­sons with dis­abil­i­ties. The in­vest­ment cov­ered the de­sign and con­struc­tion of op­ti­mised lay­er hous­ing sys­tems, a stor­age fa­cil­i­ty, an on-site ad­min­is­tra­tive of­fice, and com­pre­hen­sive train­ing for staff and vo­ca­tion­al stu­dents aged 18–30 in poul­try health man­age­ment, feed­ing pro­to­cols and biose­cu­ri­ty.

The fa­cil­i­ty cur­rent­ly hous­es more than 200 chick­ens, with plans to ex­pand with­in five months. Four for­mer vo­ca­tion­al stu­dents are al­ready em­ployed in an­i­mal hus­bandry roles, while cur­rent stu­dents gain hands-on ex­pe­ri­ence as part of their train­ing. The project al­so im­proves food se­cu­ri­ty at the home through a steady sup­ply of fresh eggs and helps re­duce op­er­a­tional costs through mod­est in­come gen­er­a­tion.

The project has al­ready re­ceived strong en­dorse­ment from the Dig­i­cel Foun­da­tion and GEF-SGP, emerg­ing as one of on­ly six suc­cess­ful ap­pli­cants out of 47 sub­mis­sions for the In­no­va­tion Chal­lenge grant. It is al­so be­ing con­sid­ered a replic­a­ble mod­el, with plans for roll­out across oth­er La­dy Ho­choy in­sti­tu­tions in Ari­ma, Co­corite and San Fer­nan­do.

Dig­i­cel Foun­da­tion Project Man­ag­er Kwasi Cud­joe said the ini­tia­tive re­flects the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s broad­er mis­sion.

“At Dig­i­cel Foun­da­tion, our com­mit­ment to em­pow­er­ing com­mu­ni­ties goes be­yond num­bers. The In­no­va­tion Chal­lenge for Per­sons with Dis­abil­i­ties was con­cep­tu­alised to im­prove liveli­hoods through in­clu­sive in­no­va­tion and en­tre­pre­neur­ship. We view each part­ner as a mul­ti­pli­er of change and im­pact, and we re­main ded­i­cat­ed to fos­ter­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties that cre­ate mean­ing­ful and sus­tain­able trans­for­ma­tion.”