Training enables mother to earn extra income

Theresa Govara hails from Maiyanda in the Lower Watut area of Bulolo district, Morobe province.

She is a mother of twelve children and plays a very busy role with daily house chores among other activities to help her family.

On top of Mrs Govara’s list of chores, she makes and sells donuts to earn additional income of K60 a day, to support her family’s basic needs as school fees for her children. Despite making this much she would return home with a few donuts.

She realised that her donuts were not selling well because the texture was dry. This experience changed after attending a food processing training by staff of the National Agricultural Research Institute engaged through the European Union-funded Climate Change Resilience (EUCCR) project. Mrs Govara is grateful that the training has enabled her to improve making donuts and increase her income from K90 to K120 a day.

After improving her recipe, her donuts have been selling like hot cake right at her door step before she goes to the local market. She makes donuts using sweetpotato and cassava flour which provides a lot of energy for her customers and family.

Her effort has gained recognition as a lead farmer in her community. She has extended the food processing training to others by assisting NARI staff deliver food processing training.

Mrs Govara received additional training in raising village chicken and how to make feed using locally available materials to minimise cost on buying commercial chicken feed. She is thankful to NARI for the training and will continue to share her skills with others in her community.