A report of outreach carried out in Arapai A Amoru village, Amoru parish, Arapai sub county, Soroti

Abstract

Outreach is one of the course modules offered at BUAC by second year students of programmes, CGA, DAP and DCP that involves reaching out to in various locations covering three zones of Arapai, Arabaka. From these, I was allocated to Arapai A Amoru parish I as a member of Group B. With my main objective of delivering extension work to fanners, hereby correlating theoretically what is learnt by putting it into practice at different farmer's homesteads. As an aim of exposing students to the surrounding communities as a way of improving their communication skills through interacting with farmers this contributes greatly to bridging the gap between the university and the fanners in the surrounding areas. In Arapai A, the area is generally flat with scattered coconut plantations and sandy-loamy soils. The climate in the region is presented to be semi-arid. From 12th March to our outreach sessions were initially commenced in amour parish Arapai Sub-county Soroti District. Emphasis was basically put on enriching farmers with appropriate knowledge and practical skills in animal and crop production and management. Practices carried out included; management of banana plantation, management practices in the orchard, weeding around the banana plantation, pruning, planting bananas in the planting holes we dug, nursery bed establishment among others as broadly discussed in this dissertation. Livestock management practices included; deworming treatment of the animals. A number of skills were attained throughout the entire outreach program experience and some of them include; improving of our communication skills, proper ways of establishing banana plantation, treatment of animals in both crop and animal sections. However, challenges well were encountered like, language barrier, long distances, shortage of tools, etc. Despite the negatives, we were able to successfully complete the outreach program as slated. Though we recommend that the university should provide aids in teaching to smoothen the outreach sessions and allocate more time for the entire program as a way to maximize dissemination of knowledge to the farm.