Through funding over many years from the Good Gifts Catalogue, an initiative of the Charities Advisory Trust, Survivors Fund (SURF) has extended 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, donkeys and cows – are a vital source of food and income. As well, the animals provide manure which helps to bolster the yield of crops.
One such example is Lucie who received a cow through Good Gifts four years ago. From that original one cow, she now has three cows. The cows have helped to improve her standard of living.
Lucie
Lucie earns about Frw 120,000 (£120) per month from the milk she sells. In addition, she collects a lot of manure from her cows.
“I do not have to worry about manure for my garden because I collect a lot of cow manure. The other benefit is that I can get milk for my family. I am also providing employment to the person who supports me to collect pasture and feed the cows and I have given two cows to other widows”.
She plans to start using biogas from the cows and reduce the amount of firewood she uses.
“My neighbors are using biogas, and I am very interested in starting that for my home too.”
For a £100 you can buy a good gift of one cow for genocide widows like Lucie in Rwanda, and in so doing enable them to support themselves. What better gift could there be!