Posts Tagged ‘Tilapia’

Students from Brownell Middle School in Grosse Pointe raised $382.50 to support Father Riwa’s Tilapia Campaign.  In fact, it was a combined effort of the Drama Club, the GEAR Up! Club and the school’s NJHS.   Brownell NJHS students sold candy and water during Brownell’s recent Drama Club production.  GEAR Up! (the student action group at the school) sold Swedish fish in cleverly made paper origami-type packets, which were recyclable.  The students had a QR code on the front, which would lead to Friends Of Kenyan Orphans’ web site.  When the purchaser opened the packet and ate the Swedish fish, a picture of the fish drawn by a class 4 student from St. Clare could be found.

Brownell Middle School teacher Joanna Porvin presented the check to Friends of Kenyan Orphans.  Joanna traveled to Kenya with Bud and Sue Ozar in 2010 and has remained a strong supporter of Friends of Kenyan Orphans.

Because the building of St. Clare is complete, Friends of Kenyan Orphans is now focusing on the care and feeding of the girls at St. Clare Centre.  In an effort to become self sufficient in the care and feeding of the children at St. Clare, Father Riwa is developing fisheries at The Children’s Village.  In addition to his farmland and greenhouse food, these fisheries will provide a nutritious protein supply and contribute to a more balanced diet for all at St. Clare. Thus, Father’s fisheries are a perfect project for Friends of Kenyan Orphans to support.

Lent is traditionally a time for more sacrifice and often focuses on fish.    Help us fill the fishponds.

• $25 will provide 5 fish
• $50 will provide 10 fish
• $100 will provide 20 fish
• $250 will provide 50 fish
• $500 will provide 100 fish
•  $1000 will provide 250 fish

“Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?” (John 6:1-15)

Last year’s drought and famine sparked a new idea in Fr. Riwa.  In realizing that he needed to be more self-sufficient and raise more food at the Children’s Village, Father built two tilapia fishponds and stocked them with 15,000 fingerlings. In addition, he hopes to add two more ponds in the future. With four fishponds he will be able to add protein rich fish into the diets of the children at least once a week.

Tilapia is wonderful at eating the scraps from the table so feeding them is not a problem. The biggest problem seems to be with the younger children, especially the little boys who love to hang around the edge of the ponds and try to catch the fingerlings by hand.

The recent famine in Kenya has taught a difficult lesson. Just like the stock market, Kenyans must DIVERSIFY so Fr. Riwa has decided to build fishponds.  This way he will not be totally dependent on grains. Small fishponds have proved very successful in other parts of Africa, especially for raising tilapia.  The process is inexpensive, very productive and the fish provide vitamins critical to a healthy diet.

The Adrian Dominican Sisters organized an Environmental Club at St. Clare and one of the duties of the club members will be the care of the fishponds.  Here the Environmental Club is at Meru University learning the skills necessary to be good fish farmers.