Or bees. Or a llama, a goat, a flock of ducks, a heifer, a pig, rabbits, sheep, or even trees.
Dana, one of my inkstained co-wretches at The Galloping Beaver, has set up a gift registry at Heifer International where you can donate shares in your choice of the above to help hungry families to feed, house and clothe themselves.
Heifer is the real deal, providing training in sustainable animal husbandry - yes, they have veterinarians working on a community level - and a unique feature which gives recipients the opportunity to pass the proceeds of their gift along to others.
Dave reports that as of yesterday we are at 1 flock of chickens, 5 shares of a goat, 2 shares of a heifer and 2 shares of a llama. What, no takers on the water buffalo yet? Direct link to Dana's registry here.
5 comments:
Interesting note: (Well maybe not, but I'm providing it anyway)
Several years ago, whilst on a peacekeeping reconnaissance in a pretty much destroyed African country, we encountered the field-leaders of several aid NGOs.
It's always difficult to sort out who's who in those cases because of the various efforts taking place all at once and the fact that one aid group will fund another from afar and there are often two or three different programs at work through one on-site team.
In one village we encountered a veterinarian from Kenya who was funded from Heifer and about four other projects. He was busy mapping out the next year of his team's work and the approach to getting people back on their feet.
He asked us if the UN mission included landmine and UXO clearance. I told him that was one of the things we were investigating and had to report back to our superiors.
He told me it was vital since the arable land was littered with unexploded ordnance and that unless it was cleared, bringing in animals to put in fields would be a pointless exercise. In his experience, agricultural animals were, unfortunately, excellent but expensive landmine detectors.
I put that in my report. Thanks to his comment we managed to get engineers in quickly to clear mines and explosives.
well, i will be donating as soon as my fraggin' intertoob unclogs. {lag}...{/lag} grrr. i notice they don't have a way to provide badgers as part of their effort. sure, bunnies, chickens, hell you can even buy a goat. no badgers. and that's why we need a war on christmas. cheers alison.
lol wouldn't let me post.
"Your HTML cannot be accepted: Tag is not allowed: {lag}"
PSA, I'm having some serious lag problems too. It's making my next post at TGB a monumental effort.
Thanks for the link! I've been giving to a religious organization that has many of the same programs (livestock etc to individuals) because I liked the idea and didn't know there was an alternative.
I like heifer much better.
And please allow me to tout www.kiva.org - a great place to make micro-loans to people in developing countries.
I like Kiva too. It's always made so much sense.
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