Preview

A Gift of Goats is a Gift of Hope

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
685 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
A Gift of Goats is a Gift of Hope
A Gift of Goats is a Gift of Hope
Story and Photos by Darcy Kiefel, Heifer International Photojournalist In a mud home made vibrant by beautiful flowers, Leokodia Byabasaija extended her hand to welcome a stranger. Byabasaija, a beautiful woman who conceals the hardships of her life with an engaging smile, lives in the village of Kisinga, Uganda. Not long ago she had a happy life with her husband, Lesio, and their children. Married in 1968, the couple, working as peasant farmers, raised nine children. Although they struggled, together they managed to send their children to school and put food on the table. In November 2001, after 33 years of marriage, Lesio died, leaving Leokodia a widow with children to rear with nothing more than a small vegetable garden for their survival. But Oct. 30, 2002, brought a new future to Leokodia Byabasaija, her children and many other families in other Ugandan villages. On that day, Heifer International and the Kisinga Women’s Dairy Goat Project celebrated the arrival of 50 dairy goats donated by Oprah Winfrey, the world-famous American talk show host. Heifer has been giving goats to this village since 1991, and continues to train women and families in goat husbandry and management, health, leadership and the integration of women into society. Soil erosion is a major problem in this area, and Heifer also trains farmers in ways to protect the environment. Courses are held for both new and previous project farmers as the need arises, and an additional 100 families are educated each year before receiving the pass-on gift of animals. Masereka Sileo and his wife, Spiranza Sileo, received their Heifer International goat in November 1994. “After our Heifer goat had kids, we passed on the gift of an offspring with happiness to our neighbor and kept the other for project sustainability,” Spiranza Sileo said. “Over the years our Heifer International goat has had nine pregnancies. The total sale of goats has

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    Monique and the mango rains is a touching story about a peace corps volunteer and a Malian midwife. The story is set in the small village of Namposella and is narrated by the Peace Corps volunteer Kris Holloway. The book gives you an in depth perspective on the life of a woman in Mali and their culture as a whole. In this paper I will be discussing anthropological concepts including rite of passage, patriarchy, and religion and how they apply to Monique and the mango rains.…

    • 282 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Kisses From Katie

    • 672 Words
    • 3 Pages

    In December of 2006, Katie travels to Uganda for the first time. The love and compassion she felt for this impoverished African-American society was instantaneous. After her mission trip in the winter of 2006, Katie could not wait any longer as she had become more and more anxious to be back where she proclaimed “Home”. Following her first trip to Uganda, Katie returned as a Kindergarten teacher where she taught classrooms full of poverty-stricken kids. After observing these innocent children’s daily lives, she soon realized that something needed to change for them; God laid it on Katie’s heart to start a child sponsorship program. Later that year, she established a non-profit organization called Amazima Ministries International. The native Luganda word “Amazima” means “truth”, a word Katie took from her favorite Bible verse John 8:32 “And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” Not only did Katie become a founder of her own organization in 2008, she also became a mother of 3 which later became a prodigious number of 13.…

    • 672 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    To stimulate an interest in caring for livestock, and to test his ability a father may give a small amount of animals to his young son. This practice…

    • 1691 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    the bite of the mango

    • 921 Words
    • 4 Pages

    As the book begins, Mariatu is a happy little girl growing up in Magborou, a village of 200 near Port Loko, Sierra Leone. The first chapter teaches the reader about life in extended families where children may grow up under the care of relatives, men may have two or more wives and several generations live and work together. Mariatu tells us about her friends, her attraction to a possible boyfriend, Musa, her hopes of going to school one day, and her scary dream of standing in palm oil, a signifier of bad things to come. We learn about village life from preparations for a funeral, rotating crops of cassava and rice, dances, secret societies, and a child's daily chores of carrying water and collecting firewood.…

    • 921 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Green, W.C.H. 1992. The development of independence in bison: Pre-weaning spatial relations between mothers and calves. Animal Behaviour 43.5: 759-773.…

    • 2652 Words
    • 11 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Goats have been domesticated for over 9,000 years. People first domesticated the goat because the animal was a steady source of meat, milk, and fiber. The original goat was in Africa and Asia, they strive in these countries because there is a large and wide variety of plants that ruminant animals thrive on. Fun fact: historically, caprines have been blamed for the creation of some of the world’s major deserts. The four-legged creatures have been around longer and, by comparison, have helped humans more than sheep or even cows. Archaeologists have found capra hircus…

    • 2244 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    The woman from America, that moved to Africa to live with her husband, seemed to be a strong and independent woman even though “She descended on us like an avalanche.”(109) “People are divided into two camps: those who feel a fascinated love and those who fear a new thing.”(109) Most people wished that she would go away someday but as time passed she grew on the hearts of the people in Africa.…

    • 440 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    BACKGROUND ..................................................................................................5 2.1. 2.2. 2.3. 2.4. 2.5. 2.6. THE NATURE OF FARMING WORK ...................................................................5 FARMING AND FAMILY LIFE ...........................................................................6 CHANGES TO FAMILY FARMING IN AUSTRALIA ..............................................7 LIFE IN FARMING COMMUNITIES .....................................................................8 PROVISION OF MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES ....................................................9 FARMING AND MENTAL HEALTH ..................................................................10…

    • 11145 Words
    • 45 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    1. What are the activities (monetary and non-monetary) do members of your household engage in to make a living?…

    • 444 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    It was back in 2002 when Kofi Annan identified women as the backbone of Africa, and sounded the dire alarm that the combination of famine and AIDS was disproporationately impacting African women "who keep African societies going and whose work makes up the economic foundation of rural communities."…

    • 2647 Words
    • 11 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Why Rhinos Are Awesome

    • 379 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Males and females frequently fight during courtship, sometimes leading to serious wounds inflicted by their horns. After mating, the pair go their separate ways. A calf is born 14 to 18 months later. Although they nurse for a year, calves are able to begin eating vegetation one week after birth.…

    • 379 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    Cynthia Moss, a former journalist and present director of the Amboseli Elephant Research Project in Kenya, has studied the same population of elephants for 44 years. She has born in 1940 in Ossining, New York, U.S.A. In 1972, she started the famous Amboseli Elephant Research Project at Amboseli National Park in Kenya. Since then she and her research associates have identified and recorded more than 1,400 elephants belonging to 50 families at an immense of 400 square miles.…

    • 2024 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The participatory management strategy allowed the host communities to harvest medicinal plants and tangible fruits from the controlled access and hunting zones, once they received authorization from Village Associations for the Management of Wildlife Reserves (Vodouhê et al., 2010). According to (IUCN, 2002) & Vodouhê et al. (2010), most of the villages adjacent to the park formed “Village Associations for the Management of Wildlife Reserves” (AVIGREF), which enabled villagers to participate in decision-making process about the park and to share the benefits from park entry fees for tourism, hunting licenses and fines imposed for illegal activities. Much more, some communities had benefitted from other various initiatives of AVIGREF such as the provision of Donkey’s cart/trolley, skills training on compost production, repair of boreholes, repair and supply of chairs/tables, and employment of teachers to…

    • 1669 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    Visit to a Dairy Farm

    • 3931 Words
    • 16 Pages

    Within two months of delivery, the cows are made pregnant again. I did not have the stamina to watch the…

    • 3931 Words
    • 16 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    Goats have been raised during many years by farmers (Devendra and Burns 1983). They can help to enhance the income of smallholder farmers in the rural areas, especially in the mountainous areas. According to Theng Kouch (2003), goat raising offers more opportunities to improve the economic livelihood of smallholder farmers by converting low-cost inputs to high value end products (meat, milk and skins). On the other hand, it has been claimed that goats have the ability to browse effectively because of the presence of mobile upper-lips (Devendra and Coop 1982; Van Soest 1982). The selective behaviour of…

    • 2738 Words
    • 11 Pages
    Better Essays

Related Topics