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Question:
I run a small NGO in UK called East Africa Children's Project. I have just come back from Tanzania where we have a partnership with community based NGO. I would very much like to start up a mushroom project. We are sending a community worker for a mushroom course. I understand you have had experience in setting up a mushroom project. If you could give us some advise of how to set up the project it would benefit many people in rural Tanzania. Many thanks Piet Lagaay CEO
Answer:

Cheers Piet,
 
Thank you for visiting the Community Tool Box (CTB) and Ask an Advisor, hopefully we can provide you with timely, useful, accurate, and directly applicable information about starting a mushroom project. Well, truth be told Piet, I don't think the CTB has experience in setting up a mushroom project per se, but the good news is that I found two examples, one from the CTB and the other from YouTube. Starting with the latter, if you click on this link, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJscP56w8To you can see how a mushroom project was set up in Nepal - very informative and shows you exactly how to do it, step by step. As I mentioned, the other example is from right here in the CTB and comes to us by way of Uganda. Go to our home page and click on the "Connect" button at the top center of the page, click on "Community Stories" and then the "View All" button. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on number 5 and scroll down to the 7th project, "Grandmothers Growing Mushrooms for Income and Nutrition – Uganda, Africa." Clicking this on will bring you to the "Overview" section. You will also notice two other buttons, "Summary of Taking Action" and "Impact/Results," both of which are self-explanatory.
 
My only other suggestion, if you don't find these two resources don't meet your needs, you can always click on our Toolkit 7. Developing an Intervention which provides supports for developing core components of a community intervention and adapting them to fit the context. To get there, again start on our home page and click on the "Learn A Skill" button on the top left corner. Click on "Toolkits" and scroll down until you see number 7. At that point you have two options: 1) an outline, and 2) examples. The outline will take you through the development of a project step by step and the eight examples are fantastic at showing how other organizations used Toolkit 7 to develop and implement their respective projects; I urge you to read through them as they will be illustrative and informative even if not directly related to mushrooms.
 
So with that Piet, I hope the three resources we offer will help you along in your mushroom project. If you don't find them helpful, please visit us again and we'll work together to find you more substantive and suitable resources. Much success to you in this most important endeavor. Be well, take care, and do good work.
 
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Question Date: Sun, 06/12/2016