Could you please donate to support underprivileged Sabah families to improve their food security via sustainable vermicompost farming? Any amount is much appreciated!
The Covid-19 pandemic left many with worsen livelihoods and uncertainty. This is more extremely in the case for Sabah - one of the Poorest States in Malaysia with over 40,000 classified as "hardcore poor". The rural community faces overwhelming issues, especially Food Insecurity.
Issues faced by the Rural Sabah Community
1. With over 74 Poverty-Stricken Villages in the underserved district of Kadamaian, Kota Belud, the local rural community is struggling to survive!
2. Due to the Remoteness, Scattered Villages, Underdeveloped Transport, Poor Utilities and Covid-19 Concerns, most villagers cannot buy daily groceries from town, making them heavily reliant on farming their own crops for self-consumption.
3. Job loss and high living costs in the city have forced people and their families to return to their rural villages and they are solely relying on Small-Scale Farming as their only means to Eat, Earn and Live.
4. Farming in the rural community is not easy! Long-term monoculture farming (growing only one type of crop such as rubber and palm oil) and a lack of water supply causes soil in these villages to be Infertile with Poor Nutrition.
5. With rural families unable to grow a variety of vegetables for, they do not have enough daily food and nutrients. FOOD INSECURITY occurs causing Imbalanced Diets and Poor Health, especially for children.
6.
Rural farmers use chemical fertilizers and practicing open burning to fertilize their land. This causes pollution and hurts the environment, causing Long-Term Harm to all Living Things and Pollute our Waterways!
7.
Continuous poverty and unemployment have Worsened Rural Livelihoods. Families now depend on Unsustainable External Aid (Food Bags) to live instead of growing their own food.
Vermicomposting lets us bring HOPE to struggling rural families!
These serious generations-long issues can be solved with a nature-based solution, which is vermicomposting - an effective way to recycle organic waste into 100% natural fertilizer using composting African Night Crawler (ANC) earthworms.
Vermicomposting benefits include:
- Improves and enriches soil fertility, aeration and water retention
- Improves crop quality, defence and harvest
- Creates quality fertilizer cost-free for farmers
- Lowers farmers’ long-term farming costs
- Reduces waste and protects the environment (moves away from traditional harmful fertilisation practices)
- Scalable and easily replicable within the rural community
Long-Term Impact with Vermicomposting
1. Farming families can easily compost their natural food waste by breeding composting ANC earthworms to produce organic fertilizer and cost-free at home - reducing home waste, while saving on farming costs. Fertilizer can be consistently used and harvested, producing healthy crops in the long-term.
2. Vermicomposting enables farmers to diversify their farmed crops with fertile soil, ensuring food and nutrient security for their families, especially during crises. Families are healthier with improved diets.
3. Vermicomposting restores the environment and ends the cycle of waste. It stops pollution and sustainable recycles farmers' old harvests as worm food for zero wastage.
4. Farmers have abundant harvests! Extra produce is sold to the local communities at our farmers' village stall, self-sustainably improving their families' income while also supplying other villagers.
5.
We can reduce hunger and poverty through sustainable vermicomposting farming in rural communities to fulfil the most basic needs. Our results have already improved the lives of many rural families.
We aim to replicate more vermicomposting centers to help village families in dire need of better livelihoods.
We need you and your support to provide food security so we can break the cycle of rural poverty for generations to come!
About Hopes Malaysia's Work
Since 2016, we have been actively empowering remote and rural villages in Kadamaian, Kota Belud, Sabah, Malaysia, helping over 8,000 villagers in rural communities via sustainable, long-term projects. We have since connected more than 30 kilometres of piping to bring water to rural families. With this, we have introduced over 80 rural families to 17 new types of local produce and poultry rearing, consistently harvesting 70 kilograms of fish monthly and 60 chicken eggs daily. This has improved the rural community's food and increased farmers' income by 53% via selling extra produce.
We are now fundraising for needed materials (such as vermicomposting ANC worms) to empower rural families in sustainable small-scale farming, ultimately leading to improved self-sustainable livelihoods and food security for the long-term future!
