For many years, Survivors Fund (SURF) has been a grateful beneficiary of the Good Gifts Catalogue. The new Catalogue has jut been published, and the great new Good Gifts website is now up and running.

To get some sense of the impact of the programme for survivors of the genocide, I paste here an excerpt from our Annual Report 2010:

Through funding from the Good Gifts Catalogue, an initiative of the Charities Advisory Trust, Survivors Fund (SURF) has extended our support to thousands of widows and orphans that are beneficiaries of our ongoing livestock and livelihoods programme. This enables SURF to distribute an array of valuable gifts. For many survivors the animals – which include chickens, goats, pigs, and cows – are a vital source of food and income. As well, the animals provide manure which helps to bolster the yield of crops.

Such livestock provide more than just income and food for survivors, but also company for isolated older survivors. This is proving to be increasingly important for housebound ageing widows who do not have a family. They look on the cows, chickens and goats – and as of this year, donkeys – as surrogate children. The impact of the project then extends beyond the material benefits of the animals, to the psychological benefits that it delivers for survivors.

Please do bookmark the new website, and consider buying a great array of good gifts from a dress to a peace espresso through to an entire farmyard!