Your goat
I
f you've just been given a goat for that special occassion, what has happened? Did it arrive at the home of a poor family bow around neck? Will you get to name it? Did it bring a smile to your face or a sense of disappointment that the goat was not in your backyard?
Instead of another book, pair of socks, unlistenable CD or yet more chocolates, your gift will keep on giving hope and change throughout the year. Gifted gifts enable people in poorer communities to access the essentials of life: clean water, food, income and a healthy environment.
All CWS’s Gifted gifts – ducks in Timor, mangroves in the Philippines, goats and water in Uganda, home gardens in Sri Lanka, cows in India, medical care in Uganda and so on – support existing programmes funded by CWS. You don’t actually own a goat or a flock of ducks. The gift is much bigger than that.
Your goat is part of a livestock programme, and the cost of your gift helps CWS partner, the Church of Uganda, purchase goats, train families to care for them, vaccinate the animals and assist women to find new income opportunities based around the goat.
In the course of the goat’s life, it will provide milk, kids, fertilizer and animal husbandry skills. Women will be able to sell surplus milk and fruit and vegetables grown with the manure. Their family will get better nutrition. Their children will be able to go to school. The first offspring will be given to another vulnerable family and the cycle will begin again. When its productive days are over, the goat will of course end up in the pot, its hide having been preserved for mats or bags.
You’ll never see the goat or meet the family but the value of gift lives on for years.
