Women Lead the Way Out of Poverty
by Mary Avant
LITTLE ROCK, Ark - The world hunger organization Heifer International has launched a $1 million fundraising campaign to support WiLD (Women in Livestock Development) projects that have proven to be effective helping women in third world countries overcome poverty and injustice.
Simultaneously, Heifer is reaching out to engage women to empower them with ideas, knowledge, skills and resources. The goal is to enable women to come out of isolation, emerge into the public sector and create a brighter economic future for their families for generations to come.
Throughout the developing world, women are responsible for feeding their families and producing most of the food through backbreaking labor. Yet many of these same women are not permitted to own land or livestock. School, a career and independence are far out of their reach. Overlooked by government programs and often denied education, rural women face a cycle of poverty, hunger and despair.
WiLD provides impoverished women with opportunities to increase their livelihoods so their own labor becomes a way out of poverty and hunger. WiLD projects provide women with livestock, cows, goats, water buffalo, poultry or other animals, as well as mico-credit loans, plus training in strategic planning, reading and math, and sustainable agricultural practices to help overcome discrimination and strengthen their position within their communities. Their often dramatic success shows others that women are capable of generating and stewarding family income. Men begin to see the value of including women in decision-making. Before long, a ripple effect of changing attitudes sweeps through communities where women have long been denied opportunities.
In some respects, WiLD projects, where at least 70% of the participants are women, simply make official what Heifer organizers and volunteers rapidly learned after the organization's relief efforts began back in 1944. Most often it is the women who take charge, leading communities – one family at a time - out of poverty. They just need to be given half a chance.
"If you give an animal to a woman, she's going to take care of her family," says Heifer Public Information Director, Ray White. "If you give an animal to a man and you haven't trained him properly, he's going to barbeque it, or he's going to sell it and go out and buy a six-pack and disappear. There are a lot of pitfalls in this kind of work. And you want to do make sure it's done in the right way."
Empowering people
Heifer's stated mission is to end hunger and poverty while caring for the earth. For more than 60 years, Heifer International has provided livestock and environmentally sound agricultural training to improve the lives of those who struggle daily for dependable sources of food and income. Heifer is currently working in more than 57 countries, including the U.S., to help families and communities become more self-reliant.
Heifer International has always thought that doing things the right way meant empowering people to help themselves. Founder Dan West, realized the truth of the Chinese proverb, "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime," while performing volunteer work with the Church of the Brethren during the Spanish Civil War. Doling out cups of milk to starving children, he realized this form of aid would never be enough.
West returned to his mid-western farm and formed Heifers for Relief, an organization dedicated to ending hunger permanently by providing families with livestock and training so that they "could be spared the indignity of depending on others to feed their children."
In 1944, the first shipment of 17 heifers - young cows that haven't yet given birth - left York, Pennsylvania, for Puerto Rico, going to families whose malnourished children had never even tasted milk. Not only were the heifers perfect for supplying a continued source of milk for a family, they could be used to help supply a continued source of economic support through the sale of excess milk. And each heifer also strengthened the community through Heifer's "Pass it On" policy: an agreement to pass the gift along in the form of a female offspring given to another local family as soon as possible. (An accompanying stud animal is also given to the family to help provide offspring.) The "pass it on" policy which was – and still is - the only condition for receiving an animal beyond agreeing to training in its appropriate care and feeding - ensures that the gift of food is never-ending.
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Global Initiatives
Heifer has learned over the years that a holistic approach is necessary in order to build sustainable communities, and it has developed a set of global initiatives – areas of emphasis that must be addressed if they are to meet their goals. Heifer teaches communities how to protect and rejuvenate their land, water and other natural resources through Agroecology - environmentally sound agricultural techniques. And, before any Heifer animal is passed along to a project partner, Heifer trains the new recipient in Animal Management, using strictly enforced Animal Welfare Guidelines.
AIDS is a prominent concern in the arena of sustainable development, and Heifer incorporates HIV/AIDS education in community training groups. It provides both "no-interest living loans" in the form of livestock, as well as small monetary loans to help people start and expand businesses that yield big benefits for families. Heifer is also reconnecting city-dwellers with their food sources, building strong alliances and instilling an entrepreneurial spirit among adults and youth through Urban Agriculture projects. Through it all, Heifer weaves youth-focused programs through all their project work, and the impact of its work is evaluated by monitoring over the several years that it takes for projects to become self-reliant. "We're unusual in the amount of time we spend on a single project," says White. "The approach is not to just drop something off – it's to help people understand how to do strategic planning based on their own shared community values. And that's a long term thing."
Projects are not considered successful until the livelihoods of participants have improved, and income, education, health care, childhood development, community organization and many other factors leading to long-term improvements are documented.
Many ways to give
Heifer works with a multitude of partners, which include faith communities, corporations and countless civic clubs, youth groups and neighborhood associations - from a Peruvian grassroots group to a New York corporation, from an Irish nonprofit to an Illinois congregation. However all programs are instituted and staffed locally in the country being served.
In 1990 Heifer Foundation was established to build an endowment to generate ongoing support for the work of Heifer International, and to educate people on how planned charitable giving supports Heifer International's work. The Foundation serves as a fiduciary for donors through a variety of planned charitable giving instruments, such as trusts, annuities and bequests. As of December 31, 2006, the Foundation's assets and commitments total over $82.5 million, with an endowment of $38.9 million; $23.8 million in trust and annuity funds; and gift commitments totaling more than $19 million.
Heifer's simple yet powerful approach to lifting families out of hunger and poverty has been recognized worldwide with many honors, including the prestigious Hilton Humanitarian Prize. In 2004 Forbes magazine named Heifer as one of ten "Gold Star Charities" on its annual list of organizations that achieve the highest impact from donors' gifts.
For more information about Heifer International, visit www.heifer.org, or call 800-696-1918.
