Enet Chimwemwe Nkasikwa
A Herd That Keeps Giving: Building Lasting Livelihoods in Salima, Malawi
For Enet Chimwemwe Nkasikwa, the question was never just how to help rural households in Salima, Malawi get through today — it was how to set them up to keep thriving long after the help arrived.
After graduating from the Asian Rural Institute, Enet brought what she learned about sustainable agriculture home, channeling it into a project with Kibo Alliance and SowHope built around an idea as old as farming itself: give a community the right start, and it can grow the rest on its own.
Her approach: pig rearing groups designed to put women and youth not on the sidelines, but at the center.
Enet started with structure. She formed four groups, each with clear rules and leadership in place before a single pig arrived. She then purchased eight healthy breeding sows, two for each group, and got to work training members in animal husbandry, group management, and collective marketing — skills that would let them run this as a shared enterprise, not just a chore list.
She didn't stop at training. Enet supplied initial pig feed for every group and arranged veterinary care to keep the animals healthy from the start. Members learned to monitor growth and reproduction and to uphold real hygiene and welfare standards — the kind of knowledge that turns a few pigs into a sustainable herd.
The shift in mindset has been just as important as the pigs themselves. Group members are no longer just providing unpaid labor on someone else's farm — they're active participants and decision-makers in a livestock business that's theirs. That change alone has strengthened food security across participating households, putting more pork on the table and more income in hand to cover other nutritional needs.
There's also something less tangible but just as real: a surge of community energy and cooperation that Enet believes can carry these same women and youth into future projects, well beyond pigs.
What sets this project apart is what happens next. Because pigs breed, the herd itself becomes the engine for growth — allowing rearing groups to expand to new households without needing another round of outside funding. Income from pig sales gets reinvested straight back into feed, veterinary care, and the everyday needs of the group.
Each household involved has walked away with more than pork and income. They've gained real skills in sustainable livestock management, stronger ties to their neighbors, and the kind of confidence that comes from building something that works — and knowing it will keep working.
Enet Chimwemwe Nkasikwa set out to create a project that wouldn't need her forever. In Salima, that's exactly what's taking root: a self-sustaining herd, a stronger community, and a model for resilience that keeps paying forward long after the initial support winds down.