Hello, my name is Getachew Zewdie, I am the manager of the Awassa Community Development Program Office. I have been working with JeCCDO for nineteen years.
There are fourteen staffs working for this Program office and five of them are program officers. Each of our staff members is responsible for a specialist area. For example; education, community health, livelihood promotion, urban agriculture and orphan and vulnerable children support.
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Getachew Zewdie
Awassa City (Southern Region)
Ethiopia
Tsege Shonde
Tsege Shonde was born in 1977 in the town of Awassa Korem Sub Kebele. He grew up in a family with a low income. Tsege tells his story as follows.
When I was a child, I used to help my father with taking care of his agricultural plot in our backyard. I recall that we used to consume at home some of the agricultural products. My father was a military man and my mother was a housewife. Unfortunately, I dropped out of school and tried finding a job. However, it was difficult due to the high levels of unemployment in our city. But I never lost hope and kept trying hard to find a job that would provide me with a stable source of income and improve the life of my family.
Yet my dream of getting a job was unsuccessful since I did not finish my education. It was then that I got the idea of considering using my father's backyard to produce agricultural products which I could sell and earn an income from. However, I feared that I might not be able to produce enough to generate an income.
Then, in May 2006, I met Abonesh Negatu who is a Volunteer Community Development Program Facilitator working on Urban Agriculture Program of JeCCDO. She informed me about bio-intensive gardening which is one of JeCCDO's Urban Agriculture Program activities. Accordingly, I took her advice on how I could use our backyard and started to work. I eagerly accepted the training opportunity. After the training, I was provided with all the necessary tools and inputs needed to maximize my backyard agricultural productivity. As a result I became very productive. I still continue to receive the necessary technical advice from Abonesh as well as from other facilitators of JeCCDO's Urban Agriculture Program. Similarly, I too have opened my door to share my new-found knowledge and skill about bio-intensive gardening with others who are interested.
 
Partial view of Tsege's garden
Today, I think of the past times when I kept looking for sources of income from other places when I actually had the resources right in our own backyard. The knowledge I acquired on effective utilization of local resources has resulted in the improvement of the items of food we consume in our household and the income that we are able to generate.
There were times where I had nowhere to go and nothing to do. Those days are bygones. I now have a lot of work to do in my garden. My success makes me very satisfied and motivated to keep on working.
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