Introduction​

In 2008 The Nivacle Foundation, gave many of our faculty a presentation of the situation in Abundancia. We were shown how because of lack of water and lack of employment the young children were suffering incredible levels of malnutrition. After learning about the situation in Abundancia, we shared the details with students at BYU - Idaho. They spent the semester trying to figure out how to boost the nutrition of the children in Abundancia. The winning group designed a simple chicken coop that could be built in Abundancia. We ended up taking the student that was the leader of that group and one other Public Health student down to Paraguay.

 

Main Project- Chicken Coops

    Once in Paraguay we realized that we only had enough money to purchase materials for 27 chicken coops and there were 54 households. We provided the materials but asked the community to build their own chicken coops. On the morning of the first building day we were amazed at how many men showed up. We assigned them jobs and created an assembly line. In five days the men of the village successfully built all 27 coops. We went to a regional fair in Loma Plata about 15 miles from Abundancia where I was able to purchase enough chickens for 3 per household. At the end of the week the entire village showed up for a cermony as we released the coops and the chickens to the Nivacle.