Story of Marcelin BONZI: From the bedroom to the chicken coop

BONZI Marcelin is a graduate student in law. Being informed that EMPE was doing entrepreneurship training, he came to EMPE (Navigators/Burkina Faso) to obtain a certificate of entrepreneurship training to apply for project funding. EMPE’s accounting secretary points out that EMPE can issue training certificates only to those who have participated in training sessions within EMPE. He then took about thirty minutes to convince BONZI Marcelin to register for a training course in poultry, small ruminants that was already scheduled for 24 to 28 July 2018. Marcelin considered this advice and participated in this breeding training.

This was the starting point of a wonderful story in BONZIN Marcelin’s life.

In the testimony below BONZI narrates:

“I bless God for allowing me to participate in this training,” he began gratefully. With passion, he continued: “After the training the perspectives of my life have changed. I had the passion to start immediately practicing what I learned during the training.

When one wants, one can:This is a statement displayed, that EMPE team found, in the bedroom of Obed (BONZI’s friend) where their breeding began.

He continued: “However, I did not have any money. So, I decided to join a friend (Obed) who is also a law student. Based on small savings mobilized, we paid 20 chicks which costed 14,000 CFA (21 Euro). Then, we put these chicks in a box and placed them in the bedroom of my friend.

This was the beginning of our breeding, 5^thOctober 2018 (From the bedroom).Thus, the chicks shared the same bedroom as Obed. When they started to grow, the first box became small. We then changed a larger cardboard box and a mini henhouse made of wood. Then we negotiated space in the yard where we house to build a henhouse to put chicks in better conditions. The space was granted to us free of charge. So, with our own resources we started building our chicken coop.

Notice that a person who visited us appreciated our commitment and gave us 80,000 CFA for the building of our chicken coop. (From the bedroom to the chicken coop). Despite the difficulties and mortality, we were able to count 38 chickens including 15 sold (2500 FCFA per unit). Today we have an average of 5 eggs a day. In addition, we paid an incubator with a capacity of 72 eggs in which we have already placed 60 eggs. We are waiting very soon for chicks that we will have produced ourselves

Our ambition is to obtain a large field on which we can conduct our breeding on a larger scale, he concluded with confidence.

“When I learnt, I didn’t need to have big money to start my business, I started my cosmetics business immediately!”

“With my income, I pay my children’s school fees, health issues and my personal needs.”

The Sustainable Livelihoods Programme (SLP)

Job Openings

Global Impact of the War in Ukraine

Story of Marcelin BONZI: From the bedroom to the chicken coop