Give a goat, change a life

When you give farm animals like goats, chickens and roosters through the World Vision Gift Catalogue, you also provide animal husbandry training. The right know-how can create an entire flock or herd, helping lift families like Debby’s (in picture) out of poverty.

Debby never met her elder brother. He died before she was born, of a waterborne illness from a polluted stream. The little boy was just six. The whole village mourned his passing.

At that time, clean water was one of the basic essentials Debby’s family did without in their region of Zambia. They scraped by, living in a grass-thatched hut that leaked when it rained. Neighbors begged neighbours for food. Misery flourished.

“We lived more or less like animals,” says Debby’s father, Obby, with sadness in his eyes. “We never had resources. We never had knowledge in the way World Vision has brought [about practices like animal husbandry].”
 

Meat, milk and income

Then, everything started to change. World Vision provided the family with goats: one male and two females. They were a larger breed than Obby had raised before, yielding plenty of milk and meat to nourish the family’s children. It also meant greater income when he sold baby goats at market.

With their increased income, the family’s future has taken a positive turn. They’ve built a sturdier house, are nourishing their children with delicious meals, and sending them to school.

“My father buys me books for school,” says Debby, who is dreaming of becoming a teacher. “And we laugh together.” Joy has replaced tears in a family that lost too much to poverty.

Families like Debby’s are hardworking, determined people, eager to learn and help others in their communities. The gift of livestock, along with training, can be the first step to transforming lives and futures. 

Let Good Health and Opportunities Flow

A community’s long wait for clean water finally ends.

Imagine being a student in the village of Siayan, Philippines. Your school supplies include the usual items that Canadian students also need – textbooks, paper, pencils. But there’s another very important item that students in Siayan bring to school every day that Canadian students don’t: a gallon of water, which they collect from a communal source on their way to school. That is because their school toilets don’t have enough water to properly flush, leaving girls and boys to choose between going to the bathroom anywhere or holding it in. Neither is a healthy or safe option.  

“Lack of access to clean water, whether in school or at home, exposes a child to an unclean environment,” says World Vision’s Program Manager Manuel Lim. “He or she cannot practice proper hygiene. It also puts children at risk of water-borne diseases such as diarrhea.” 

After the education department declared that all schools must have daily access to clean water in 2016, World Vision partnered with the local government, school and community to help address this concern. With the installation of water pipes to bring water from its source to the school, a tank to house the water and a hand pump in case of a power outage, things began to look up for everyone in Siayan.

Judith, the village’s chieftain, remembers the hardships she also endured as a student without access to clean water in her school. “For the longest time, we have been hoping for a safer way to get clean water,” she shares. “I am now 50-years-old so that’s how long I have been waiting. I am grateful that the younger generation won’t have to go through what we did.”  

Children’s rights include education

For every child, education can make the difference between grinding need and boundless opportunity. Tax (in picture) has grown up understanding the life-changing value of an education. But until recently, the 12-year-old boy in Laos couldn’t make the most of his opportunities.

He had a school to attend – that wasn’t the problem. But in the classroom, Tax and his friends lacked the resources and books they needed to learn even the basics.

Imagine the stress of knowing that education can lift you out of poverty, then not having even the simplest materials to learn with! No textbook to refer to, no pencil to write with and no notepad to practice in. Of having dreams that you can’t chase and a bright mind you simply can’t apply.
 

Resurrecting children’s dreams

This scenario is changing, for children like Tax. World Vision is helping provide the materials that young, developing minds are hungry for.

Not only can such gifts unlock the fascination, satisfaction and pride of learning today. They can open a world of doors for the future. 

“I have more opportunities to read now,” shares Tax, with a smile. “World Vision has provided learning materials and reading books to our school and encouraged us in our reading activities.” They have also helped train existing teachers, improving their skills so students can learn more effectively.
 

Potential for the future

Unpacking hope through medical supplies

Teams at Sainte-Thérèse Hospital in Hinche, Haiti (in picture) now have medical supplies to help their patients and themselves through the COVID-19 pandemic – thanks in part to the generosity of Gift Catalogue donors.

“World Vision has always stood by our side during difficult times,” says Dr. Jean-Baptiste, a government health official in Haiti. This contribution of medical supplies included: infrared thermometers, pulse oximeters, gloves, sterilized protection suits, surgical gowns, oxygen containers, chlorine and soap.
 

Protecting heroes

Not only do such supplies help protect children and families from COVID-19 as they receive care at the hospital. They also keep health workers going strong, and better able to look after more vulnerable people.
“They [health workers] are heroes, the ones who tirelessly work for our safety and the safety of our children,” says Elusma Guily, a manager with World Vision Haiti. “Keeping them safe is paramount.”
 
Around the world, millions of children have been orphaned by COVID-19, leaving them without parents to nurture and provide. When family members are ill or deceased, children are too often forced into hazardous jobs – or given no choice but to take on adult responsibilities in the home.
 
In Haiti, World Vision’s pandemic response has reached more than two million people in need. Strengthening health systems to better respond to COVID-19 not only keeps girls and boys safe today, but it also helps protect parents and caregivers – safeguarding children’s futures.