This week Jen and I both worked lots of hours and so we could not fit in any volunteer work. Instead, we decided to give to an organization we have known of and been impressed with for some time, Heifer International.
Heifer International is a worldwide assistance organization that operates on a simple principle, that it is better to teach a man to fish than to just give him a fish. Following this principle, Heifer does not simply give food to hungry people. Instead, they give "living loans" of live animals. They go into communities all over the world and teach them how to keep and breed the animals they are about to receive. The "loan" part comes in because recipients are expected to breed the gift animals and then give the offspring to another person in their community. Thus, instead of addressing a one time need for food, a community is given the resources to feed itself, and to grow and prosper through the additional benefits the livestock provide such as income from the sale of milk and eggs, manure for better farming yields, and the ability to pull plows and carry supplies to make farming more efficient. Also, because of their policy of "Passing on the Gift" to other local people, and the community-based approach to training and infra-structure development, Heifer helps bind people together and set them on an upward-spiraling path that leaves everyone in the community more able to sustain themselves. It is really a brilliant approach to actually reducing the number of hungry people in the world while at the same time promoting unity.
Heifer has been at this for about 60 years, and they have found great success. You can see a timeline HERE of their history and some major accomplishments. They have also created a fairly ingenious way to entice donations - you can give in animals in someone's name. Jen and I have done this in the past, and it is great fun. We gave my brother a goat, and there was nothing like the series of surprised looks on his face when he found out first that we gave him a goat and second that his goat was being cared for by some nice people in some impoverished part of the world. You can also just give directly, without doing it in someone's name. The list of animals that can be given is wide ranging, including cows, water buffalo, sheep, goats, rabbits, chicks and more, and for people interested in donating a large amount, you can give an "Ark" which includes some of everything. It seems a little funny to give, say, a pair of rabbits, but if you think about how that pair will grow in a five year period, the impact of a very small donation goes an impossibly long way. You can also give a share of a larger animal, which means you can really give a donation of almost any amount and make an impact.
This organization is doing real good, and they are making donated dollars go a very long way. It is arguable that a dollar given here will have more impact to help people than any other organization we have mentioned so far, because that dollar will keep giving for years to come.
The Heifer website does a great job of explaining their mission and practices, and I have pulled just a couple things to highlight:
Click HERE to see a 60 second video by Alton Brown summing up how Heifer works.
Click HERE to see a summary of their current mission statement, which was revised in 2011 to reflect an attempt to widen their mandate and view their work through a lens of global interdependence.
For the Heifer International main page, click:
Heifer International
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