Leaders of the women's association of the Zabre (Association des Femme de Zabre, AFZ) initiated a training programme for their members on compost making and its application in planting pits (zai) after they visited a seminar on the topic in 1987. AFZ actively sought technical and financial help and found this through the Centre Ecologique Albert Schweitzer (CEAS, based in switzerland). Support began with the establishment of a first demonstration site where five local facilitators (one from each zone) learned about and developed the technology together over a whole year - comparing the results with sorghum fields without compost. In the following year those five facilitators, each trained 20 womens in their zones using the same training methods as they themselves had experienced.
AFZ set up demonstration and training sites in each of the five zones. These demonstration areas were protected by a wire netting fence contained a well, a cement water tank and some shade trees for the compost heaps and training sessions. Machines for the wells, hand tools and manure were fully financed, whereas community infrastructure was only partly funded. Each demonstration site had one hectare of cultivated land with irrigated vegetables in the dry season and sorghum in rainy season. The facilitators used this land to demonstrate the effect of the compost and thus to visually convince the trainees. Each of the trainees carried 20 kg of compost home and applied it to their own sorghum fields. During the first 18 months, a CEAS technician visited the zones regurarly.
In the following years the neighbouring villages each sent group of 20 women to established demosntartion and training sites, each group for one day a week. They carried out the successive phases of composting in demonstartion plots, while simultaneously implementing the practice at home - where they were supervised by the facilitators as far as possible. In this way 500 women were trained within one year. Although it took a while men gradually began to take part and assist their wives when they lost their fear of being ridiculed by others. Many more women then put themselves forward for training. While waiting they tried to imitate their neighbours but with mixed results. The support of the CEAS project decreased over the years until 1997 after which it was phased out being no longer necessary. Training has since continued through the five zonal facilitators and the local agriculture extension service.
