Tag Archives: children

Poor=Lazy?

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Greeks and Italians have been taking some blows lately as their economies crumble. Why can’t they be more like their wealthy, tidy northern neighbors in Germany and Holland, critics want to know. Fellow European states are putting pressure on the Mediterranean governments, suggesting that they can borrow money as long as their citizens work harder and save more.

But is laziness really to blame? Turns out the stereotype of the lazy Latins vs. the enterprising northern Europeans doesn’t hold up. Slate writer Matthew Yglesias pulled the numbers and found that Greek, Spanish and Italian workers all put in significantly more hours than the Germans and Dutch. “The truth is that countries aren’t rich because their people work hard. When people are poor, that’s when they work hard,” Yglesias wrote.

This simple truth extends beyond Europe’s borders, and it brought to mind how I feel every time I visit Heifer project sites and meet the people there. In Senegal last year I met a mother of four named Fatou Dione who wakes up before 6 a.m. every day to pound and cook millet for breakfast, fetch water, hunt for firewood, care for the family’s sheep and send the children off to school. She also works in the fields and cares for aging family members, responsibilities that keep her moving until after the sun sets. Fatou lives in a hut made of sticks and relies on her brother-in-law to send money when the family’s stores of millet run low.

I often think of Fatou when my morning routine goes awry and I’m late getting myself and my two boys out the door. Dirty diapers and temper tantrums are a hassle, but hot water pours automatically from my faucets, my refrigerator is stocked with food and the only animals I have to care for are a dog and a cat. Pretty easy stuff, really. I’m certain Fatou works harder and is more tired at the end of the day than I am, and still I have so much more. It’s humbling and eye-opening and it certainly confirms what my mother always told me, “Life isn’t fair.”

My mother also told me that we all get what we deserve in the end. I wish that was true, but after meeting Fatou and so many other clever and hard-working Heifer project participants around the world, I know for a fact it’s not. What you start with usually dictates what you’ll end up with, so let’s all count our blessings. At the same time, let’s work together to make sure brilliant, driven, loving people in places Heifer works have a decent shot at getting what they deserve.

Heifers In Flight: Delivery of 70 Heifers from Ireland to Romania a Huge Success

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At approximately 1:45 pm today, 70 purebred cows landed at the airport in Timisoara, Romania. These heifers flew from Ireland to be integrated into a food security project for orphans and poor families in central and western Romania through a partnership between Heifer International and Bothar Ireland. Bothar is part of a network of non-governmental organizations that use livestock in development aid. It is also sensitive to children’s needs and has experience helping children in Central and Eastern European countries.

The cows are Holstein Frisian and were brought to Romania to ensure the necessary milk for institutionalized children and rural families without income. The heifers came from Shelton Abbey Prison in Ireland, raised by prisoners living under an “open prison” concept, which allows them to raise livestock.
Twenty heifers will go to Caminul Felix orphanage in Oradea. Following Heifer’s Pass on the Gift model, each of the children who receives a cow will pass on the first female offspring to another orphan.
According to the Romanian National Authority for Child Protection, 80,000 to 100,000 children between 0-18 years are institutionalized every year. The daily food allocation for orphan children is about $2.80, which is not enough to provide proper nutrition. Through the Milk for Orphans Project, daily nutritional supplements will be provided on a long-term basis for the children, meeting their dietary needs and improving their general health. The project will ultimately serve more than 5,000 children from orphanages in central and western Romania.
Milk processing will be ensured by the Animal Breeders Association in Corusu, which operates a milk collection center, built with the support of Heifer Romania.
The remaining 50 heifers flown in today will reach poor rural families in Rasca commune, 56 miles from Cluj. About 60 percent of the families here do not have consistent incomes. They are trying to establish small-scale private farming in order to earn a living. Through the project, the families will improve their nutrition and increase their income by breeding Holstein Frisian cows, well known for their high milk production and rapid adaptability to various climate conditions. These families will also pass on the first female offspring of their dairy cows to another impoverished family, and they will donate 79 gallons of milk to orphan children.

The arrival of the heifers was a huge success, according to Heifer Romania Communications and Public Relations Coordinator Laura Manciu. The animals landed and were transferred safely and without any problems. The airlift was a big media event, with more than 30 reporters from different media institutions. Mr. Valeriu Tabara, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development attended the event and gave a short speech in support of Heifer and Bothar’s efforts. 

When Poverty Touches Home

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Though I wasn’t born in Arkansas, I’ve lived here since I was four and consider it my home. Growing up in a small town, I’ve witnessed poverty and hunger with classmates, participated in local food drives, and had my parents teach me valuable lessons on how to give to others. When I decided to go to college, the best fit for me seemed to be Arkansas State University in Jonesboro, AR. 


In college it’s harder to know the hunger and poverty around you. As a college student, everyone seems broke and hungry. Even though I was a little more removed from actually seeing those going through hunger hardships than I was growing up, I continued participating in food drives with local college clubs. 


If you keep up with the Heifer blog then you see the Weekly Article Roundup blog where I try to discuss blogs that we’ve written here, other articles that we pass around the office and current trends in the world. Yesterday, I received this article about America’s Poorest Cities, and two of the cities on the list were in Arkansas. After reading it, I knew that I didn’t want to wait until Friday to post it.


Here recently, I’ve discussed U.S. poverty a couple of different times. The fact that 1 out of 6 persons in America is living in poverty, how 14.7 million children currently live in poverty, and how Heifer has just recently participated in the first Little Rock Heathy Food and Active Living Summit. 


Working at Heifer, I know there is a lot of poverty in the U.S. and globally, but when it is pointed out in the town you spent four years in, it’s a little shocking. My college town of Jonesboro, AR was number eight on the list, while number two was Pine Bluff, AR, which is just around 30 minutes from Little Rock, AR, where Heifer has its headquarters. I was a little stunned to say the least. 


Jonesboro, AR, with a population of 120,365, has a median household income of $35,526, and 25.5% of the population lives below the federal poverty line. Around 2.6 million people in the U.S. slipped below the poverty line in 2010, which is defined by an income of $22,314 for a family of four. In Pine Bluff, AR, which has a population of 99,871, the median household income is $33,446, and more than 22% of the city’s residents live below the poverty line. 


Many times it’s hard to see hunger, and unless you’re experiencing it, it can be easy to forget. So how do we all take responsibility to help end hunger in our communities? Begin to learn the facts in your hometowns. Find out what the need is. Spread the word that hunger happens to more people than we know. 


Check out www.heifer.org/usa to see what Heifer is doing to help end hunger in the U.S. 

Reading Lessons

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Today is International Literacy Day. As an organization that relies heavily on training and education for the success of our projects, Heifer is taking part in the observance of a day that calls attention to the 780 million adults who do not know how to read or write and the 100 million or more children who lack access to education.  I had the pleasure of meeting Nguyen Thi Thuy in 2010 on a two-week trip through Vietnam and Cambodia. Her story is just one of the many in our cache about how learning to read has dramatically changed someone’s life.

AN MY, Vietnam—Nguyen Thi Thuy had one dream: to help her children with their schoolwork. But she couldn’t read.

Thi Thuy was born in the Kesach District in southern Vietnam. Her parents had 13 other children and struggled to provide for them, she said. They frequently had to travel to find work, leaving her and her siblings at home to fend for themselves. 

“I really wanted to go to school, but I knew my parents couldn’t afford it,” Thi Thuy said. “I wanted to be a teacher. If I were a teacher I would teach other poor children to read and write.” Thi Thuy said her lack of education left her feeling paralyzed. She was afraid to go anywhere for fear she couldn’t find her way back home. 

When she married her husband, Huynh Huu Loc, she learned that he had only finished fifth grade. He could read and write, and they agreed that schooling for their children would be their first priority. “We knew they could have a sustainable life if they had education,” she said.

The couple soon had two children—a daughter, Huynh Thi Thuy Dung, and a son, Huynh Huu Nghia. But the couple found it more difficult than they expected to provide enough money for their children’s school fees.

The couple worked as seasonal laborers occasionally taking jobs in nearby rice fields. They earned just about $2 a day. 

“We worked as hard as we could for our children, but we often had to borrow money from neighbors to pay for their school fees,” Thi Thuy said. 

In 2008, the couple learned about Heifer. Thi Thuy knew immediately that Heifer could help her family. 
She joined self-help group and began attending trainings. But since she couldn’t read or write, Thi Thuy said she had to listen carefully. Because of this, she sat in the back of the room, away from her other group members. 

After a short time of trying to memorize what the trainers were teaching them, Thi Thuy decided it was time for her to learn to read and write. She couldn’t rely solely on memory to get by.

She first asked her sister-in-law to teach her the alphabet. Then, she learned to combine letters to form words, and then she asked her children to write words for her and she started copying what they wrote.
“I was busy all day,” Thi Thuy said. “I studied at night from 7 to 11p.m. every night.” It took her about five months to read and write. 

“Heifer gave me the determination,” she said. “The group even elected me cashier.” 

Thi Thuy has changed so much. She no longer worries about feeding her family and can focus on educating her children. Her daughter, Thuy Dung, 13, has a dream to become a doctor, she said. So Thuy Dung says she’s focusing on studying physics. Her little brother, Huu Nghia, wants to be a professor of Vietnamese literature.
Heifer allowed her to achieve her dream, Thi Thuy  said, so she should do the same for her children. “Heifer gave me the most valuable gift to be able to read and write. I’ll support their dreams. I want their dreams to come true,” she said.

Weekly Article Roundup

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We’ve been busy these past couple of weeks discussing the famine and drought in the Horn of Africa on the Heifer blog. This week, along with the drought discussion, we’ve also been reading and following the topic of child poverty in the United States. We’ve done a recap on the Annie E. Casey Foundation report which came out this week and a dove a little deeper into the discussion of child poverty in the U.S.
Here are some of the stories we’ve been passing around about famine and drought in the Horn of Africa: 
 The Annie E. Casey Foundation report, which came out this past week, found the following: 
  • Poverty has increased in 38 states from 2000 to 2009
  • 14.7 million children were poor in 2009
  • 5.3 million children have been affected by foreclosure
  • 1 in 5 children in the U.S. live in poverty 
 So what are your thoughts? The famine and drought in Africa, the significant child poverty numbers in the U.S., share your thoughts with us in the comment section.

A Deeper Look at Child Poverty in the United States

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At Heifer International, we talk quite a bit about the families who are stuck in the cycle of poverty and what we’re doing to help them get out of that cycle. And though we don’t often think about it in the United States, this land of plenty and opportunity, there are families facing the exact same cycle of problems.
Maegan has already provided an overview of the report published by the Annie E. Casey Foundation on child poverty, but I want to dive a little deeper into the numbers presented.
The report highlights that the 2011 federal poverty level is $22,350 a year for a family of four. But research suggests that to meet their basic needs, families actually need an income of roughly twice the official poverty level. It would be the first step to breaking cyclic poverty.
To help children grow into successful, productive adults, their parents need good jobs with good incomes, stable housing, affordable childcare and health care, and enough assets to build a more prosperous future.
Here are some other, jaw-dropping statistics straight from the report:
  • In this country, children born to parents in the lowest fifth of the income scale are quite likely (42 percent) to end up there as adults.
  • At age four, children who live in very low-income families are 18 months behind the developmental norm for their age, and by age 10, the gap is still present.
  • 7.7 million children remain uninsured, along with nearly 12 million parents with children under age 18.
  • Almost 11 percent of the nation’s children had at least one unemployed parent in 2010, affecting nearly 8 million children.

 But the finding that affected us here at Heifer was this: that the states in the South and Appalachia dominate the lower-ranking states. The 10 states with the lowest Overall Rank in terms of child well-being are all located in these regions.
Why did it have such an effect on us? Because that’s where Heifer USA will be implementing programs going forward. We can help change these numbers. Learn more about our work in the United States here.

Poverty and Children in the United States

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If you’ve been keeping up with the Heifer blog lately, you’ve read stories about: hunger and poverty globally, the drought and famine in the Horn of Africa, how we are working in Sierra Leone, Honduras and Zambia. Today it’s time to discuss what’s going on in our own back yard.

The Annie E. Casey Foundation published a report on Wednesday which found that child poverty has increased in 38 states from 2000 to 2009 leaving 14.7 million children poor.

The report went on to say that 5.3 million children have been affected by foreclosures in the U.S. economy and the increase of children living in a family with no parent with full-time employment was 31 percent in 2009 compared to 27 percent in 2008.

A child living in poverty doesn’t mean simply living in an unstable environment; it means that children will likely suffer academically, economically and socially long after their living environments have stabilized. For a family of four, the poverty level this year is set at $22,350.

Though the report did say that infant mortality, child and teen deaths and high school dropout rates have declined, the number of unhealthy babies has increased. It’s hard to see poverty ending in America when 9.1% of U.S. workers are still unemployed and consumer prices rising 0.5% in July alone because of the increase of cost in gas, food and shelter.

Though poverty doesn’t look the same in the U.S. as it does globally, it does beg the question, with 1 in 5 children living in poverty, when will it end? 

Three Million Dead in Three Months

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Nearly a month ago, we reminded you that a child dies every five seconds from hunger related causes. That’s about 25,000 children a day. More than 9 million a year.

In the last 90 days, more than 29,000 Somali children under the age of 5 have died. The cause? Famine.  That means around 3 million children are dead from hunger or hunger related causes in three months. And with 640,000 Somali children labeled as “acutely malnourished,” more will die.

Children of Heifer recipients finish plates
of beans at their home in west Africa

Are you mad yet? You should be. These deaths are preventable.

While Heifer focuses on sustainable development work and not relief and emergency aid, we support that work and know that it is of utmost importance right now. We’ve been covering the crisis in Somalia on this blog, and monitoring the situation every day as thousands of refugees are pouring into the neighboring African countries where we do work.

And yes, we know that getting aid into the Shabab-controlled regions where the famine is at its worst is difficult. But that shouldn’t discourage you from doing everything you can to help stop what’s happening.

Millions of dollars have already been donated, but the U.N. says it will need “hundreds of millions more” to fight the hunger crisis in the Horn of Africa. The time to take action is now. Here’s how you can help.

Family Grows Vegetables in Old Tires to Educate Their Eight Kids

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Amelio Esteban Méndez lives in the community of Zarza Negra, San Carlos Alzatate in the department of Jalapa, Guatemala, along with his wife, Francisca Hernández Santiago, and their eight children. Amelio’s family participates in Heifer’s Peasant Farmer Alternatives for Food Production Project, which will benefit 500 families with goats, rabbits and training by 2014.


(Photo: Amelio and Francisca showcase improvements made to the family farm with knowledge acquired through Heifer training.)
The second of nine children, Amelio’s childhood was filled with unmet needs and missed opportunities. Amelio’s parents worked as day laborers in farms far from their village, and they took the whole family along.
“(My parents) took me on trips, but not for sightseeing,” Amelio said. From an early age, Amelio had to help his father with farm work. “I didn’t play with other children. I never had a real toy,” he said.
Amelio’s father would manage the family income, which he often used to pay for alcohol instead of meeting the family’s basic needs. Although the family worked hard every year, their situation never improved, leaving unanswered questions for Amelio: Why do we have to work for others? Why can’t we plant coffee if it provides a livelihood for others?

Amelio met Francisca when he was 18 years old. Now, they have four daughters and four sons for whom they work very hard.
“We tell them to study, so one day they can develop and grow into intelligent people,” Amelio said with pride. “I wish I’d had the chance to go to school, but it wasn’t possible.”
The family’s life began to change after Francisca attended the first project meetings. She would share what she had learned with her husband, but Amelio thought it was al a waste of time–that only jobless people attended the meetings.
(Photo: Francisca and her young daughter participate in a food exchange in Alzatate.)
But Francisca persevered, and as time went by, she became the beneficiary of Pass on the Gift animals, and Amelio was hooked.
“I now regret wasting time (and) not taking advantage of being part of the organization before, because I have now seen the results,” Amelio said.
The family initially received chickens, and now they have a cow. Their diet has improved from incorporating animal protein from eggs and meat. The cow provides manure for organic fertilizer, which enriches the soil and increases crop yields. Their farm is 3.2 acres, and they grow corn, beans, vegetables, coffee, and wood and fruit trees.
(Photo: Amelio learns about water harvesting during a farmer exchange visit.)

Amelio has participated in several project-led exchange visits where he has learned from the successes and failures of other small farmers.
“My family takes advantage of any space to produce; here, we are using old tires to grow vegetables,” he said.
Every exchange encourages Amelio to continue improving his farm.
“I am pracitcing worm composting, and I’d like to learn to make composting bins,” he said. Francisca is also learning and applying her newfound knowledge to the benefit of her family.
Want to start your own worm bin and make the most of those old vegetables you found in your crisper? Our World Ark magazine summer issue helps you get started.