Tag Archives: Camels

Camels: An Extreme Animal Makes an Extreme Gift

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The land where Heifer International works in northern Tanzania is so parched in the dry season that dust devils assault the landscape. This is where camels can become lifesavers, as one man discovered.Dusty dry season in northern Tanzania

Elijah Lemayan Sokino joined a Heifer International camel project ten years ago designed to deal with the effects of periodic drought in the area. His family, like other Masai, depended on goats and cattle for their livelihood, but in years when the rains didn’t come, the cattle died. For the semi-nomadic people, this was distressing and perilous.

Mr. Camel

 

Even though the new camels were big and unfamiliar, Elijah stuck with them. He learned to love them. When drought struck again a few years later, families who had dismissed the animals returned to him, seeing that the camels survived when their own cattle did not. Worried they would starve, Elijah redistributed his camels to them.

Now, the family’s camels produce milk that sells for a good price in nearby towns, and people in the area call Elijah “Mr. Camel.”

You can help other families get this kind of independence with the gift of a camel.

Some things you may not know about these amazing creatures:

Camel in Tanzania
Camels can eat almost anything
  • Camels can survive in environments with very little water and can eat vegetation other animals can’t.
  • Camels can drink up to 25 gallons of water at a time.
  • Camel’s milk has three times as much Vitamin C as cow’s milk, and is rich in iron, unsaturated fatty acids and B vitamins.
  • Camel hair can be woven into rugs and tents, and their manure can be burned for fuel.
  • There are about ten times as many Dromedary camels (the ones with one hump) as Bactrian (with two humps), and most of them live in the Horn of Africa or Middle East.
  • Camels have been called the “ships of the desert” for their ability to carry large loads across the sand.

You can give a gift unlike any other this holiday with a Heifer International camel.

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? Check out our entire online Gift Catalog.

Heifer International Farmers Thrive in Tanzania

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Heifer International project participants in Tanzania have taken the skills learned in Heifer’s trainings and created successful enterprises for their families. Meet the Kitamari family. Their small plot of land is now an organic farming system, complete with goats, vegetable crops and fish fingerlings. “Mr. Camel” began raising camels after drought claimed the lives of his cattle. Now he sells camel milk for a profit.

Your gift of a camel can help small farmers like Mr. Camel in Tanzania.

Heifer International From the Field: Training and Technology for Improved Livelihoods

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This weekly post shines a light on a handful of stories from Heifer.org’s “From the Field” section.

Heifer International’s projects around the world differ in many ways, but training is an element they have in common. Training on topics such as livestock raising, marketing and gender and family focus is often the spark that drives project participants to create farms and businesses that are innovative, lucrative and inspiring.

Pa Phoeuk with her pigs in Cambodia

Pa Phoeuk with her pigs in Cambodia

In Cambodia, Pa Phoeuk applied swine-raising skills she learned and fattened a piglet to 304 pounds in just five months. She sold the pig and bought three more piglets to expand her swine production.

Project participants in Peru are using information and communication technologies (ICTs), especially online resources, such as social networking, to strengthen capacity and access new markets.

Milk cooperative members in Ukraine put their training to work and opened the country’s first smallholder farmer-owned milk processing plant. Being directly involved with processing and marketing is sure to increase their incomes.

Families in Tanzania have used innovative training techniques to make life better, including turning to camels for milk when raising cattle is no longer an option and transforming a small plot of land into an organic farming system.

Help more families by donating now!

 

Give a Camel: A Gift that’s in it for the Long Haul

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At home in arid environments, camels provide plenty to needy families who have few resources. Aside from the nutritious milk and transportation they provide, camels are easy on the environment. They eat leaves and trees and not precious grasses that need to be saved for other livestock.

Isaya Shakwet. Photos by Jake Lyell for Heifer International.

Sabina and Isaya Shakwet live in the rural Maasai village of Mkuru, Tanzania, where 12 camels donated by Heifer supporters were sent. At first, the camels mostly provided families with much needed milk (which has three times the vitamin C as cow’s milk) and transportation. But through Passing on the Gift, there were soon 26 camels in the community. And that’s when they had the idea to team up and start the Mkuru Camel Safari Cultural Tourist Program. “Through camels we get a lot of income,” said Isaya gratefully. “It helps children with education fees. We pay doctors once a month to come out and give medical care to pregnant and nursing women.”


Transportation
For nomadic people like the Maasai in Tanzania, camels have lightened the load. Families have trained camels to plow and haul firewood, as well as crops to be sold at markets.

Shelter
Income from the sale of surplus milk can help pay school and doctor fees. But families can also take the money to make improvements to their homes–including solid roofing.

Microenterprise
Recipients of Heifer camels are recognizing the business opportunities that their camels provide. Extra income has allowed one group to launch a cultural program for tourists. The camels provide the transportation for the safari through rural Tanzania.

This holiday season, give the gift of a camel to your daughter, who repeatedly made you sing the song, “Sally the Camel (has five humps” when she was 2. And read more about Heifer’s work with camels.

Read All About It

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The story of Dan West is a special one to all of us at Heifer headquarters. Without him, we wouldn’t be here. But West’s vision and his original gift cows mean more to many of our beneficiaries—often more than we comprehend. One example is Humphrey and Mercy Mwananyanda who were so inspired that they named their daughter Hope after one of the first heifers shipped overseas to help struggling families.
The Mwananyandas are just one of the many families Heifer is helping in Zambia, through a partnership with Elanco. That story is the main feature in the Holiday edition of World Ark magazine, coming soon to a mailbox near you.
You can also read about coffee’s long journey farms in Mexico to your morning mug, or the article about two young Heifer donors on a quest to raise enough money to buy a camel this year. 
The story of Ryan Bell and his younger sister Meghan is one that I find particularly inspring, and I hope you take a minute to read about the siblings from Connecticut on a quest to raise $5,000 for Heifer no matter how long it takes.
You’ll also find TheMost Important Gift Catalog in the World in this edition, too! Once you’ve picked out the Heifer gifts you’ll be giving this year, please pass it on to friends and neighbors so they can do the same. 

The Famine and What You Can Do To Help

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Today is Blog Action Day 2011. It is also World Food Day. This year’s theme for Blog Action Day is Food. Bloggers all over the world are writing about this one theme, from their own unique perspective. To find out more, visit the Blog Action Day website. Read more of our Blog Action Day posts on Heifer Blog here.Food. It’s a basic necessity. Nearly one billion people don’t have enough of it.

But right now, 13 million of those hungry happen to be in the Horn of Africa, an area which is experiencing its worst drought in 60 years. The drought, coupled with years of instability from armed conflicts that have prevented aid organizations from helping mitigate hunger, the area has been thrust into famine.
Mbaatian, her husband, Lmantasian, and Roniti
We know, we know. You’ve heard us and a million others talking about it since July. So, why should you care? Because you can help do something about it. Right now.
Mbaatian Lemungat is a Heifer beneficiary who lives in the rural village of Ngurunit, Kenya. Not long ago her family received camels and training in their care.
But Mbaatian’s family hasn’t escaped the clutches of the drought. Her eldest daughter died after drinking contaminated water from one of the nearby wells that hasn’t yet dried up.
Mbaatian is now caring for her granddaughter, Roniti, who is also sick. Right now the camels are still providing milk that is helping supplement the nutrition the little girl needs. But without intervention to help keep the camels alive, Roniti may die, too.
Even though Heifer typically focuses on long-term results and not immediate relief aid, helping those in the Horn of Africa is a priority. Keeping their livestock alive keeps them alive.
We’re launching a project in the area where Mbaatian and her family live to assist those suffering from the drought. Our Families in Crisis Fund will help:
  •  Provide access to grass feed and veterinary drugs by purchasing and distributing 270 tons of grass hay and veterinary supplies to 2,600 Samburu pastoralists in Ngurunit, Arsim and Tuum locations as short term response.
  • Provide access to water for both domestic (drinking water, hygiene & sanitation) and livestock consumption by constructing three water dams in Samburu district to serve more than 20,000 families and their livestock.
  • Establish a fodder production enterprise through irrigation of 500 acres owned by 1,000 families in Garissa.
  • Establish two community-owned facilities in Garissa irrigation scheme designed to handle 1,500 heads of cattle each at any one time for fattening and rearing heifers for replacement/restocking after the drought
Help these families today. Go to www.heifer.org/drought to learn how.

Horn of Africa: Let’s Think Long-Term

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Photo by Dave Anderson, Heifer International

Today the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations posted a warning on the Horn of Africa crisis that speaks directly to Heifer staff, supporters, donors and potential partners: “Predictable, sustained support for rural economies and livelihoods is needed to avoid future crises.”

As world governments met today (Thursday) in Ethiopia for an international pledging conference aimed at winning more aid for the Horn of Africa, the FAO warned that efforts to keep farmers and pastoralists on their feet, prevent the crisis from worsening and speed progress toward recovery are not being adequately funded.

Heifer International is not an aid organization, our model to end hunger and poverty while caring for the Earth focuses on long-term solutions. The current drought and extreme hunger crisis in East Africa is not new. Though awareness has recently been raised through recent news coverage, including of visits from Jill Biden’s visit to refugee camps of Somalians and a promise of more U.S. aid, this same drought cycle has been battering the farmers and people of the region for more than a decade.

Read this article from The Economist from 2009 that describes the cycle:

“The drought cycle in east Africa has been contracting sharply. Rains used to fail every nine or ten years. Then the cycle seemed to go down to five years. Now, it seems, the region faces drought every two or three years. The time for recovery—for rebuilding stocks of food and cattle—is ever shorter. And if the rains fail before the end of this year, an unimaginably dreadful catastrophe could ensue.”

Just two years later, the catastrophe is here. Will we hand out aid again and not dig deeper to long-term solutions that help people survive despite the drought? Will the images and stories fade until two years from now, when it all happens again, we’ll scramble to repeat the inadequate response?

Heifer’s camel projects in Kenya and Tanzania have already helped farmers and pastoralists recover from loss of cattle and near starvation on a small scale. We’re studying ways to expand our model in Kenya to Ethiopia and Somalia to address the long-term needs of the people in this area. But as the FAO warns, support, funding and dedication to long-term solutions are critical. Yes, refugees need aid now. Yes, they also need a sustainable solution to get them out of camps with no way to support themselves.

Would you be interested in supporting a long-term project using Heifer’s model? Please share your ideas, concerns, hopes for how we can work together in comments here or send an email to worldark@list.heifer.org.

Adapting to Drought in Tanzania

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Photos by Dave Anderson


We visited a Maasai community in northern Tanzania in the rainy season, in April of last spring, when trees were lush with leaves that Heifer camels nibbled on happily throughout the day. Yet at the sandaled feet of the young men who led the animals to graze was a deep sand left in the wake of a terrible, persistent drought that continues to change the lives and parts of the culture of this community forever.

It’s hard to imagine enough grass ever grew here to sustain the large cattle herds the Maasai traditionally raised in this area for centuries. From the mid-1990s to about 2007, the land shriveled and baked in the hot sun, with no relief. Grasses and water sources dried up, as did the Maasai primary income from cattle. They began selling their gaunt animals for as little as $5 each. Those not sold perished.
It is part of the Maasai culture that meat is only eaten on rare occasions: When a baby is born to give the mother strength, to honor a special guest, to help heal the very ill or for ceremonial reasons. They got protein from the milk or from a milk/blood mixture. So many animals were left where they fell to return to the earth.
As the drought stretched on, almost every cow in herds of hundreds died. “When their cows died they went back to square one, to poverty,” said Peter Mwakabwale, then Heifer Tanzania’s country director. A small amount of grains from government assistance is all they had to eat for much of the year.

Their women’s group sought help from Heifer, and the community received 31 Dromedary camels in 2008, which were much more adaptable to the new climate reality in Eastern Africa. They provide not only a sweet, nutritious milk, even in times of drought, but also help with transportation of water and firewood.


It wasn’t necessarily an easy transition, and there are still some hitches. The women, responsible for milking and caring for the animals, are frightened by the large, sometimes unpredictable creatures, prone to fits of bucking, kicking or spitting when they’re stressed out. Other nearby communities accustomed to cow milk are reluctant at first to try or buy camel milk.

However, the camels also brought many welcome changes to the Maasai culture. Because of the size of the animals, the men help out more and accompany women to gather firewood and water. They produce milk even during the dry season, getting enough water and nutrition from trees and bushes well out of the reach of traditional cattle.
To me as a visitor to the culture and the country, the picture is a beautiful one. I never saw the area before the drought, but today the community is thriving with life and celebration. Athletic young men and women in bright blues, reds and purples mingle among the camels, with views of distant mountains set against a clear, blue sky. The children make happy slurping noises and giggle as they tip back their milk mugs for every last drop. As an editor for Heifer’s World Ark magazine, I’m amazed more with every visit by the careful planning and attention to culture, climate and sustainability our organization invests in each project.
Read more about Heifer’s camel projects in Tanzania and stay tuned for an insider’s look in a coming World Ark at how Heifer participants and country staff help choose appropriate animals for each community served. Click here to order a camel or share of a camel to continue to help participants in Eastern Africa adapt to the extended drought.

Optimism in the Wake of the Storm

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This morning it was my privilege to work alongside about a dozen of my colleagues from Heifer International headquarters, picking up limbs and debris left by the recent severe storms that hit Heifer Ranch in Perryville, Arkansas. We joined forces with numerous ranch staff and volunteers as well as members of the community.

The din of chainsaws was constant background noise as we stacked firewood and piled branches to be burned at some future date. Utility crews worked nearby, restoring electricity to buildings still in the dark, and all around us were sheep, goats, cows, water buffalo, turkeys, and even a camel. These are among the Ranch’s best-known residents, and they came through the storm unscathed.

It was hard not to feel overwhelmed by the scope of the damage. While none of the Ranch’s guests, staff, or volunteers were injured, numerous barns and outbuildings were destroyed. The yurts in Global Village #2 were flattened, and the Ranch lost countless large shade trees. There are more photos of the damage and the cleanup effort below.

During my time at Heifer Ranch this morning, I couldn’t help but notice two things:

  1. The infectious optimism. The Ranch staff tell me the property is already vastly improved thanks to the hard work of volunteer firefighters, church groups, utility crews and neighbors. Michelle Izaguirre, who directs Heifer’s learning centers, says the Ranch will reopen Monday. In the second Global Village, temporary structures will house groups where yurts once stood (watch video here).
  2. The fact that it could have been much, much worse. Buildings can be rebuilt, and trees can be replanted. Our thoughts and prayers are now with the numerous families throughout the region who suffered tremendous losses of life and property due to recent tornadoes. 

Times like these remind me we are all connected as one large family. Thanks for being there for us.   

Read more blog posts about the Heifer Ranch cleanup here.  

Llama Love

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by Sandi Watson 

Have you ever seen a llama or alpaca up close? They are beautiful animals, with their big eyes, flirty eyelashes, long legs, and soft fleece.

alpacas in Pacchanta, Peru April 2010

For the Heifer project families who raise them, llamas and alpacas are also tremendously useful. After turning the fleece into yarn, families can create blankets, hats, ponchos, and other items. During our volunteers study tour in Peru, we learned that these beautiful weavings are also part of a rich cultural heritage. Special symbols such as condors, alpacas, mountains, and rivers honor Mother Earth.

Sometimes white fibers are dyed, using inks made from local plants. Other times, the weavers use only the naturally occurring colors – rich browns, pale taupes, creamy whites.

All these hand-crafted pieces are an important source of income for the families.

Llamas thrive at high altitudes, as we saw when we visited Pacchanta (over 13,000 feet above sea level). They are nimble and strong, able to carry loads to market. And because they are related to camels, they don’t need much water.

The next time you need a fun gift for a loved one, consider giving a llama in your beloved’s name. The person you honor will be thrilled and you’ll make a tremendous difference in the lives of the people who receive your gift!

This post originally appeared on the Heifer in Boston volunteer blog.