Author Archives: Donna Stokes

About Donna Stokes

Donna Stokes is the managing editor of World Ark magazine. She has worked for Heifer International since September 2008 when she leaped over to the nonprofit world from a two-decade career in newspaper journalism.

NGO Aid Map Helps Members Work Together

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Heifer International is one of InterAction‘s more than 190 member organizations working in developing countries around the world. We’ve referenced their NGO Aid Map, which has been operational since 2010, before, but it’s worth revisiting. The site details more than 3,600 projects in 80-plus countries.

A post this week announces work on three new sub-sites on China, India and Mexico as well as further development work on the main site to help all members find ways to work together and learn from each other. The purpose of providing this open data is not “transparency for transparency’s sake,” but “ultimately, the goal is use – individuals and organizations acting on that data in ways that actually lead to improvements in people’s lives.”

Heifer International is pleased to be included and applauds efforts to continue to refine and develop the already extensive and innovative map. If you have not seen it yet, check it out by going here. To view Heifer projects alone, go under organizations pull-down menu until you find us listed. Happy exploring!

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Ending Violence Against Women Through Social Change

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In our hometown paper here in Little Rock, Ark., news of murder and rape charges against five of the men accused of gang-raping a 23-year-old woman aboard a moving bus in India made the front page today. The attack and subsequent uprising and cry for change is front and center in thousands of newspapers and online news sites around the world. If you aren’t paying attention, it’s time to start. This is an unprecedented moment in India’s history and in the cause of women’s rights around the world.

Protesters in New Delhi take part in a silent march to demand justice for the 23-year-old woman who was raped and killed. ZUMA/Rex Features/The Guardian

A report in The Guardian quotes Ranjana Kumari of the Centre for Social Research as saying “Can this grief, this anger at the brutalization and murder of a young woman result in positive change? What we are seeing on our streets is a defining moment of our democracy. … For decades, India’s endemic violence against women has been a defining issue for women’s groups and the rights movement, but for the first time the crime of sexual offense and rape has been taken up by the people themselves.”

Rapes have become frequent in India, with complaints increasing 25 percent from 2006 to 2011. More than 220,000 incidents were reported in 2011 alone, according to Indian government statistics cited in a CNN report. What’s notable is that now, finally, the issue is getting the global attention it deserves, though at the horrible cost of the brutality endured not just by the medical student who died of her injuries but also of the scores of women who bore the pain of such an attack in silence.

The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette article cites Kishwar Desai’s opinion piece in The Indian Express that said the gang rape illustrated to some that “a certain class of men is deeply uncomfortable with women displaying their independence, receiving education and joining the workforce. The gang rape becomes a form of subduing the women, collectively, and establishing their male superiority.”

He goes on to say “the answer lies in correcting the manner in which families value men and women, and the emotional disconnect between them.”

Author Ranjana Kumari said “for decades, NGOs, women’s groups, human rights organizations have been pushing against this wall of institutional sexism; now a part of that wall has broken down and we must seize this moment.”

Heifer International includes gender equity training in its projects around the world, many of which include traditional cultures that limit the rights and freedoms of women. Special trainings just for men explain the value of women’s contributions and help them understand that working together will improve the lives of all, men, women and children. Women have their own sessions and organize in self-help groups to pool savings and start small businesses.

In Bangladesh, one of the gender equity trainings for men led Mohammad Huzzatullah, a man who had returned from work outside the country with means to make a difference, to sponsor his own women’s group. Read more about his story in World Ark here, or in our digital edition on iPad and Android tablets.

Every day, Heifer’s investment in women and training in women’s empowerment change lives. In just one example, in Nepal, Heifer participant Ganga Khanal once suffered abuse from her husband and believed herself that women and girls were not as important as men.

Ganga Khanal shows off her Heifer goats in her family’s pen in Jirouna, Nepal. Photo by Geoff Oliver Bugbee

“I used to be guilty as well in believing it was more important to educate or provide for my sons than for my daughters. But the trainings changed all that for me. Today, my daughter is in the army. She has made me realize and understand that girls are no less than boys.”

Her 17-year-old son Sudip learned that same lesson. “Looking at my mom, I have changed my view of women, and I have so much more respect for them and confidence in them. I used to laugh at them sitting in their groups and thought they would never do anything good. But just seeing them grow through the years through the project and seeing them buy land, build community buildings, form businesses, it’s just been so overwhelming.

“I have so much respect for these women who have created opportunities for people like me,” Sudip said. “The future looks bright for us because of our moms.”

Development organizations, women’s rights groups and governments should all take this moment in history at its full weight. Change is already happening. Please add your voice to the chorus and speak up for women’s rights. Write us at worldark@list.heifer.org or comment on this post. Please click here to contribute to Heifer’s women’s empowerment projects.

Today’s article in The Lancet medical journal wraps it up best, “The greatest respect we can give to the memory of the Indian student who died on Dec. 29 is by protecting and strengthening the political and social rights of women worldwide.”

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New Tablet for Christmas? Try This Free Download

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World Ark on iPadWere you one of the lucky ones to receive an iPad mini or Google Nexus tablet from Santa this year? As you’re exploring all the fun options for your new tablet, search for World Ark on the App Store or on Google Play to enjoy your first, free digital magazine experience. We promise you won’t be disappointed!

Watch the video below for a glimpse at all the digital magazine offers, including original content and field stories from Heifer projects worldwide.

Download your version today from the App StoreSM on your iPad or from the Google Marketplace for your Android tablet. Email our magazine staff at worldark@list.heifer.org to let us know what you think and what’d you like to see featured here for future issues.

Happy exploring!

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Aquaculture: The Gift of Fish for Life!

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Tanzania aquaculture

Nicholas Mwakabelele took the spirit of Passing on the Gift to the extreme by giving tens of thousands of fish fingerlings away to his neighbors, including a blind man who once asked for a handout. Photo by Dave Anderson, courtesy of Heifer International.

Aquaculture, or the raising of fish under controlled conditions, accounts for half of the world’s food fish. In Heifer’s aquaculture projects, participants receive the gift of fish fingerlings and training in farming techniques specific to their area of the world. Such a gift very quickly improves family nutrition with the lean healthy protein of fish such as tilapia.

Plus, it’s easy to sell fish for income so families can achieve financial independence and Pass on the Gift of fingerlings to empower entire communities. One of Heifer’s most inspiring stories of Passing on the Gift comes from a fish-farming project in Mambi village, Tanzania, where Heifer participant Nicholas Mwakabelele (above), was the first in the area to become successful at fish farming. He often got requests from neighbors who wanted to buy a few fish for dinner, but when he met neighbor Wailos Nzalayaluma (below), both of their lives would forever change.

Tanzania aquaculture

Disease blinded Wailos Nzalayaluma before he could finish school. He is now able to provide income for himself and his mother through fish farming. Photo by Dave Anderson, courtesy of Heifer International.

Wailos is blind, and he asked Nicholas to give him a few fish for his family’s dinner. But Nicholas had a better idea. Instead, he helped Wailos build his own fish pond and then donated fish fingerlings to him so he could grow his own and never be hungry again. The two continue to work side by side as fish farmers in the community. Read their full story here in Heifer’s World Ark magazine.

Heifer currently supports 63 aquaculture projects in 10 countries including Brazil, Ecuador, Honduras, Haiti, Estonia, Thailand, China, Philippines, Cambodia and Tanzania.

Give now to help families like these in Tanzania start their own aquaculture projects.

This post is part of our What to Give series, where we’re helping you choose the best Heifer gift for your loved ones. Read previous What to Give posts here, and subscribe to the What to Give series here.

Still don’t know what to give? Visit our full catalog page here.

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World Ark Tablet App: Join the Buzz

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Heifer International launched its premiere tablet issue of World Ark magazine on Thursday, and we’re excited to see our news pop up in fun new ways. Please join the buzz by downloading and rating or reviewing the app.

Adobe features the World Ark digital edition as its “App of the Week.” We are especially grateful to Teresa Demel at Adobe for sharing the story of Mossamad Sabina Begam of Bangladesh in the video and demonstrating how to purchase a Heifer gift for the holidays. The digital issue uses the Adobe Digital Publishing Suite platform.

Writer Zoe Fox took the time to call us to find out more about our new digital edition and featured the app in an article on Mashable.com that was picked up by 20-plus additional news, nonprofit and tech sites.

Fundraising Success, a site for direct marketing news, featured us as well.

Closer to home, Arkansas TV news outlets KATV and Today’s THV included us in their coverage of Heifer’s alternative gift-giving season campaign and holiday events.

Download your version today from the App StoreSM on your iPad or from the Google Marketplace for your Android tablet. Email our magazine staff at worldark@list.heifer.org to let us know what you think and what’d you like to see featured here for future issues.

The World Ark digital magazine will appear quarterly in spring, summer, fall and holiday. It was created with the help of digital design experts Bates Creative Group.

 

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World Ark Now Available on Tablet!

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World Ark iPad_Cover

Heifer International continues a long streak of innovation by becoming the first development nonprofit to offer a full digital magazine—the World Ark you’ve always loved—available in a free download on iPad or Android tablets.

You’ve likely already received your print edition of the Holiday 2012 World Ark, but as of today, there’s more content and features to love on your iPad or Android tablet. The print issue will continue to be available to Heifer supporters with no interruption.

For this premiere tablet Holiday issue, extra features include:

  • A welcome video by Heifer’s President and CEO Pierre Ferrari;
  • Video of women in Bangladesh celebrating during a Pass on the Gift ceremony from photographer Geoff Oliver Bugbee as well as a video glimpse of how the Arkansas Chuggabugs traveled around the world to raise money for Heifer;
  • World Ark iPad_CatalogA spectacular digital catalog featuring favorite alternative gift items including the gifts of women’s empowerment, sending a girl to school and cookstoves to improve health and the environment;
  • Interactive infographics including how women build clay cookstoves in Malawi;
  • An extra review of poverty- and hunger-related courses you can take for free on your tablet from iTunesU;
  • The latest news from the field on an interactive world map;
  • Slideshows featuring stunning photography.
Download your version today from the App StoreSM on your iPad or from the Google Marketplace for your Android tablet. Email our magazine staff at worldark@list.heifer.org to let us know what you think and what’d you like to see featured here for future issues.

The World Ark digital magazine will appear quarterly in spring, summer, fall and holiday. It was created with the help of digital design experts Bates Creative Group using the Adobe Digital Publishing Suite platform.

The World Ark print edition got its name in 1994 with an issue celebrating Heifer’s 50th anniversary. The magazine’s predecessor, Sharing Life, started in the mid-1970s.

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Thankful for Our Loyal Donors

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Heifer supporters no doubt have already received this year’s version of The Most Important Gift Catalog in the World in the mail or have visited the catalog online to begin to choose alternative holiday gifts such as heifers, goats, tree seedlings and honeybees to send to families in need around the world.

The first issue of World Ark in 1994 celebrated Heifer's 50th anniversary.

This year, new offerings to better serve our participants include biogas stoves to improve health and preserve the environment, an education for a bright young girl, an investment to help participants launch a small business or the simple yet vital gift of clean drinking water.

Innovation has always been a part of Heifer’s history. Did you know that Heifer’s gift catalog is more than 45 years old, with the first versions of an alternative gift catalog emerging in 1966? Many organizations have since copied our catalogs, but it’s easy to identify the original, labeled The Most Important Gift Catalog in the World.

World Ark magazine, which includes the gift catalog, has been around since 1994, with previous incarnations going back to the mid-1970s. This holiday season, we are so thankful for our loyal donors who return year after year to honor family, friends and co-workers with life-giving gifts of prosperity and health to be shared far and wide.

Stay tuned this holiday season for the announcement of more exciting innovations at Heifer International that aim to help us share Heifer’s unique approach to ending hunger and poverty in exciting new ways.

Thank you for keeping Heifer families around the world in mind this year as you embrace the spirit of the giving season.

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Leading the Poverty Fight in Nepal

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Heifer's President and CEO Pierre Ferrari meets with Jag Kuwen Magar (left) and Khir Bahadar Magar in Shaktikhor, Nepal, a few weeks ago.

Heifer International’s President and CEO Pierre Ferrari visited Nepal in late August with Mahendra Lohani, Heifer’s vice president of Asia and South Pacific programs. Reporters Bijay Ghimire and Pushparaj Acharya interviewed Ferrari for the Nepalese Karobar National Economic Daily during that visit. Below is an excerpt from the interview. To visit the online Nepalese news site for the article, click here.

Q:             Heifer Nepal has been working in Nepal for the past 15 years. How would you rate the situation in Nepal?

A:             Lots of significant work has been done in Nepal to alleviate poverty. The transformation that I have witnessed in the community is amazing. Poor farmers’ livelihoods have improved. Agricultural and livestock-keeping techniques have improved. We have taught farmers about value chains. We encourage smallholder farmers to connect to markets and become entrepreneurs. The conditions here are favorable enough for people involved primarily in agriculture to not have to be poor. Changes are not only material, they are also social. There’s material growth and there’s social growth.

Q:             What is social growth?

A:             We work with communities to increase their income, to improve their food security and nutrition and provide trainings to help them adopt environmentally friendly and sustainable agricultural practices. We teach them about the value chain. After one group achieves its goals of improved income and better livelihoods, they teach other groups in the same way, hence fulfilling their social responsibility. The families also receive micro-finance support for bio-gas and toilets, anything they need to help them overcome poverty. Inputs and support that Heifer provides for one group is passed on to the next group. The first group undertakes the responsibility of making this second group equally capable. This ensures continuation of the work even after Heifer completes a project.

Q:             Is it easy to work this way?

A:             The target community, after they benefit from the inputs, form cooperatives. One group has to support the other to ensure income, food security and empowerment. We end a project only after incorporating all these groups into a cooperative. This way, a group of 25 will become a group of 400. Heifer has incorporated almost 71,000 families in this model. This allows them to continue seeking and receiving government and non-government support even after the project has ended. They are able to mobilize their resources better. This way the project never ends, it is continued by the participants themselves. Cooperatives are the best tool to work with resource-poor families.

Q:             How many districts do you work in now?

A:             We work in 38 districts. We have just started a new project focusing on goat farming and dairy. We have realized that if you just make the poor capable enough to earn two meals and day and have a roof over their heads, even the smallest fluctuation will take them back to absolute poverty. We cannot leave them so vulnerable. We have currently been working on creating market reach for farmers. Our main support is targeted toward bringing them above the poverty line.

Q:             In many cases income increases, but poverty still remains. What can we do to improve living standards?

A:             We are focusing on market access and enterprise. We want to assure that this process does not stop after the project. That is why the cooperatives are important. First we bring hope into people’s lives through social and economic support. After this, they will be able to move ahead and access markets with financial incentives. Enterprise will assure regular income, and they will be able to increase their income as the market grows.

Q:             Isn’t it strange for an American NGO to be working through cooperatives and microfinance to improve livelihoods?

A:             We have been doing this for the past 70 years. After the Second World War we distributed cattle to various parts of the world from America and Ireland. This started in 1944. We started in India in 1942 and in Nepal we provided Jersey cows in 1947. We have also provided chicken and chicks. The Tribhuvan highway was just being constructed and was not net open to the public at the time. USAID received special permission from the Royal Palace to use the road to transport the animals. They were delivered to Delhi in a ship and brought from there to Kathmandu in trucks. It was expensive, but we did this work of transporting improved animal breeds all over the world.

Q:             You talked about women’s empowerment. What about the men?

A:             We also train men, but some move to Saudi Arabia and other countries for work. Women live in the village throughout their lives. But our projects are not just for the women. When women are successful, the benefits and income flow throughout the family. Empowering women does not necessarily mean the man’s influence is reduced. Empowering women means empowering the family. This model’s success is proven.

Q:             How did you continue to work even during the [Nepalese rebel] conflict when most international agencies, especially American agencies, were not allowed to work?

A:             Our greatest strength is the families we work with. They represented us and supported us if there were problems in implementation during the conflict. They told the rebels, you are rebelling for better livelihoods for us, so is Heifer, so why do you want to stop the good work? International nongovernmental agencies are often accused of not being transparent. But we were transparent throughout. What amount is allocated to livestock, what amount is allocated to trainings, what amount is allocated to social mobilization, everything is open and clear.

Q:             Why do you think Nepal is poor?

A:             There are limited resources and tools in the country. But I don’t think Nepal is poor. It has a lot of potential to develop in the hydro-power and agricultural sectors.

Q:            What kind of programs will be implemented in Nepal in the future?

A:             Our current project aims to involve smallholders in the goat value chain. It also has a small dairy component. Along with this, we will also focus on strengthening the cooperatives.

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Newsday: The Big Deal About Goats

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If you’ve ever read the children’s book Beatrice’s Goat, you understand immediately what Heifer’s work is meant to accomplish. With a small input such as a goat, a family in poverty soon has a way to grow income and move toward sustainability.

Beatrice Biira visits children in Ireland in 2006. Photo courtesy of Heifer International.

As we’ve mentioned before, Heifer is now lucky enough to have Beatrice Biira on our staff doing community engagement in New York.

Newsday, a daily newspaper that serves the New York metropolitan area, today published a column by Jennifer Wheary on Biira with the following intro:

At 28, Beatrice Biira has had experiences that most of us will never have in our entire lives. She’s been on “60 Minutes,” “Good Morning America” and “Oprah.” She was the subject of an award-winning, bestselling 2001 children’s book called “Beatrice’s Goat.” She’s met celebrities and been featured in People magazine and The New York Times. She interned for Hillary Clinton when she was a U.S. senator and captured the attention of internationally renowned economist Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University.

Sachs was so inspired by Biira that he created a theorem for her. The “Beatrice Theorem” simply and powerfully states that: “Small inputs can lead to large outcomes.”

Check out the full column here, and please comment with suggestions on how Biira and other Heifer staff and volunteers can help even more families by telling others about Heifer’s work.

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Help Megan Help Haiti

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In a recent blog post, Megan Bean, age 11, of the Big Moo Canoe fundraising family, shared with us her plans for climbing 14,000-footers Mount Grays and Mount Torreys in Colorado this year to raise money for Heifer’s Haiti REACH program.

“I had heard a lot about Haiti’s disaster, and I hope my project will help small towns there where aid is less often sent get back to maybe a little better than normal,” she said. ”I’ve wanted to do a 14-er for awhile. I really love camping and hiking, and I had heard lots of stories from my parents climbing mountains and wanted to make my own project.”

She just announced on her Big Moo Canoe Facebook page that she will be making the trek this weekend, on Saturday, Sept. 15! So please join us in wishing her well and propelling her up those mountains with lots of donations for those in need in Haiti. Please go to her home page today to donate.

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