Tag Archives: exclude

Follow the Roadmap to End Global Hunger

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Greetings Fellow Activists:

Roadmap to End Global HungerEarlier this week, members of Congress and leaders from a wide range of organizations gathered on Capitol Hill for the official launch of the Roadmap for Continued U.S. Leadership to End Global Hunger. Heifer is one of the 50 organizations supporting the Roadmap, which is a set of common guidelines for United States anti-hunger efforts, including program and management recommendations to make those guidelines realistic and achievable. With more than 925 million people suffering from chronic hunger in the world, I see this as a significant step toward progress in putting an end to it.

Strong, continued U.S. investment and leadership is critical to ending global hunger and malnutrition. It would take less than one-tenth of one percent of the U.S. budget to end the suffering of millions of people. This comprehensive approach of emergency, safety net, nutrition and agricultural programs will help us end global hunger and malnutrition, saving millions of lives.

Some key highlights of the Roadmap include:

  • Recommendations (and justification) for $5 billion worth of combined investments in all areas affecting hunger (emergency, nutrition, agricultural/rural development and safety net programs).
  • Establishment of a new White House Office on Global Hunger to integrate key executive branch programs with one another (USAID Feed the Future, President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, Millennium Challenge Corporation, USDA Foreign Agriculture Service, and food commodity programs under the Office of Trade Representative) to avoid waste and duplication.
  • Re-convening of the former Select Committee on Hunger in the House of Representatives as a formal caucus (with a Senate equivalent to make it bicameral) in order to coordinate a single, coherent legislative response to executive programs.
  • Programs that emphasized resilience, flexibility and strengthening local safety nets to help make emergency assistance more rational and efficient, as well as to bridge gaps between short-term humanitarian response and longer-term development programs.
  • Specific examples from implementers of what works in terms of resilience, etc. with a short primer on key lessons and how positive impacts were achieved.

You can download the full Roadmap here and learn more about how we can all work together to save millions from hunger and malnutrition.

I am proud to have leant my signature and the backing of Heifer International to the Roadmap and what it represents.

To feed a child today, go take the World Food Program USA’s short hunger quiz. Once you’ve tested your Hunger IQ, come back and tell us your score. If you’ll tell me yours, I’ll tell you mine!

Joining Flat Stanley: “Flat Heifer”

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You’ve probably met Flat Stanley. He’s a loveable character who has been traipsing across the globe since he was first introduced into children’s literature in 1964. In 1995, a Canadian schoolteacher by the name of Dale Hubert developed the Flat Stanley Project and soon paper Stanleys were being mailed from school to school and their travels being recorded in journals by engaged students. Last year, Stanley even made it to the White House. Now Flat Stanley has entered the digital world and Heifer International is joining him in that space.

 

The Flat Stanley iPhone and iPad app (available for free) offers new ways for you or your kids to learn about what Heifer does. The way that the app works, kids (or kids at heart) can design a Flat Stanley or Flat Stella. After you design a Flat character, you can start taking pictures in your community and the character will be super imposed. Heifer will have a special character costume available for purchase in the game with a portion of the proceeds going to support our work in developing countries. 

The Flat Heifer costume

 

But that is just one way you can interact with Heifer through the app. The other option is to pull up the map of the world and find places to send your Flat character. There will be eight different Heifer adventures: Haiti, Malawi, Kenya, India, Cambodia, Armenia, Peru and Romania. You will have the opportunity to receive pictures of your character exploring Heifer projects along with tidbits about our work. At the end of the tour, you will get a journal entry that recounts everything your character did and a fun description of what Heifer is doing in that country. We can’t wait to hear all about your adventures, so please come back and share them with us!

We’ll Be Right Back!

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Hello! We wanted to let you know that our servers are being upgraded, so you’ll see a break in content here on the Heifer Blog. We should be back in business Wednesday morning.

Niyoba Women's Club

See you soon! Photo by Jake Lyell, courtesy of Heifer International.

In the meantime, if you’re looking for something to read, check out some of our popular posts from this year:

And don’t forget, you can always find us on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.

Heifer International Awarded Kiwanis World Service Medal

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Earlier today, Heifer was recognized for our work to end hunger and poverty and protect the planet by the 600,000-member Kiwanis International family, with the presentation of Kiwanis’ highest honor – the 2012 World Service Medal.

The medal, presented to Heifer President and CEO Pierre Ferrari by Kiwanis International President Alan Penn at the Kiwanis annual convention in New Orleans, also came with a $10,000 grant to the organization.

Previous winners have included Mother Teresa, actors and humanitarians Sir Roger Moore and Audrey Hepburn and First Ladies Nancy Reagan and Rosalynn Carter.

“There is a proverb that reads, ‘Give a man a fish and he won’t starve for a day. Teach a man how to fish, and he won’t starve for his entire life,’” said Penn in announcing the award. Since 1944, Heifer has provided livestock and Earth-friendly agricultural training to families who struggle daily to survive. To date, we have helped more than 15 million families  in more than 125 countries, including the United States, become more self-reliant.

“I had the privilege of seeing the work of Heifer International first-hand as the son of missionaries who managed El Sembrador, a school for orphan children located on a farm in Honduras. Heifer International provided calves for the farm to improve the herd of livestock,” said Penn. “Their amazing work affected me deeply and has stayed with me all these years.”

“Heifer International is honored to receive this award,” said Ferrari. “Here we have two great organizations with great legacies – Kiwanis nearly 100 years and Heifer nearly 70 years – of helping people help themselves.”

Many Kiwanis organizations around the world have contributed to or partnered with Heifer International, “so each and every Kiwanis family member has been part of the amazing transformation that has led 80 million people from poverty to prosperity,” said Ferrari.

“We all have cause to be very proud.”

As an organization dedicated to service, Kiwanis International promotes the ideals of service not only among its members, but also among young people and the public at large. The Kiwanis International Board of Trustees established the Kiwanis World Service Medal in 1985 to advance this goal by recognizing individuals and organizations that devote a significant part of their lives to meeting the needs of others.

“We are honored to be in such august company as previous winners, but we must never forget that every day, thousands of children die needlessly around the world, from treatable diseases, from correctable situations,” said Ferrari. “Kiwanis and Heifer International are both proven solutions to these problems, and we deeply appreciate this honor, but there is work yet to do and we are delighted to be pursuing those solutions with you.”

Uganda Biogas Project Wins “Best Practice” Award

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Photo by Russell Powell

Heifer International has employed some ingenious solutions to third-world problems over the years. Now, one project has received a “Best Practices and Innovations” award from InterAction, a coalition of nonprofits focused on development.

Heifer’s Uganda biogas project eases the workload of rural women and improves their health by providing a safe, renewable and cheap source of fuel – a fuel that’s much cleaner than firewood. The technique uses cattle and pig waste to produce methane gas for lighting and cooking. The dung is collected in a “digester,” where microbes break it down and release methane, which can be captured in a cylinder or piped straight into the home.

InterAction’s technical review committee noted the impressive results achieved by Heifer International Uganda’s biogas project, especially the improvements in living conditions and incomes in rural communities. The committee was also impressed with the project’s promotion of women’s participation, as well as the strong collaboration with the government and private sector.

Most people in rural Uganda, because they don’t have access to electricity, rely on firewood. But the supply of wood and charcoal is being quickly depleted by deforestation. Women and children spend hours gathering firewood, tending cook fires and breathing in smoke and soot.

Home biogas plants under construction.

 

The biogas project is funded by the Dutch government and began in 2009. It aims to install 12,000 biogas units by the end of 2013. The project trains both the builders and the users of the biogas plants, which are relatively simple to build. The construction enterprises working with Heifer include two run by women.

In addition to easing deforestation, the Heifer International project has lowered women and children’s risk of disease from indoor air pollution, and hygiene has improved since animal waste is no longer left close to the homes. A majority of households have reported a reduction in health care expenditures.

 

There are other benefits, too.

Bioslurry, a byproduct of the methane production, can be used as a natural fertilizer.

The bio-slurry removed from the digester at the end of the process can be used as natural fertilizer, resulting in better crop harvests. Children are able to read and study at night with gas-powered lighting. And interestingly, some men now feel more comfortable preparing light snacks and tea with user-friendly biogas stoves.

“We at Heifer International are very pleased to receive this award,” says Elizabeth Bintliff, Vice-President of Africa Programs. “It’s a huge credit to the Heifer Uganda program, highlighting one simple innovation that can solve many different problems. We hope InterAction’s recognition will help spread the word about this technique, so that we can share its benefits with many more communities.”

Archbishop Desmond Tutu Supports Heifer’s Read to Feed Program

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Archbishop Desmond Tutu
Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu

Heifer’s Read to Feed program welcomes a new supporter – Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, Nobel and Gandhi Prize recipient and human rights activist from South Africa.

“I strongly support the Read to Feed program,” said Tutu. “Join me in helping our children learn, from a young age, both the joy of reading and the great honor of being part of changing the world for the better.”

Reed to Feed is a program unique to Heifer that not only encourages reading, but also gives kids the chance to change the world for the better. Children collect pledges for each book they read and then contribute their pledge earnings to Heifer’s mission. We have many Read to Feed participants, not only in the United States, but also in some of our project countries like South Africa.

In South Africa, Read to Feed has been successful in many school such as Crawford Preparatory School in La Lucia, Scottsville Primary School in Pietermaritzburg, St. Mary’s Diocesan School for Girls in Kloof and Bishops Preparatory school in Cape Town, to name a few.

Seventh-grader Daniel Stainforth from Crawford Preparatory School said, “I feel we can afford to help, but others can’t. No one really motivated me before to read books. But in this case, (knowing that I am helping others) has motivated me.”

To learn more about our Read to Feed program and inspire the young people in your life to love reading and helping others, visit our Read to Feed page on our website.