Tag Archives: Heifer Romania

From the Field: Investing in Youth

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

The children of Heifer Vietnam project participants enjoyed a day of fun and learning on International Children’s Day. Youth under 15 years old received milk and cookies, notebooks and certificates of appreciation if they earned good academic records during the school year. The celebration helped inspire parents to continue working hard as they watched their kids laughing and singing together. Huyen Tran, 5, said her new notebook will help her study hard so she can make her parents happy and proud.

International Children's Day

Children of Heifer Vietnam beneficiaries celebrated International Children’s Day with games, cookies and soccer. Photo courtesy of Heifer Vietnam staff.

Last year, 12-year-old Aramayis Avalyan began investing in a sheep farm with a YES! Youth Club grant from Heifer Armenia. His mom prepares cheese from the ewe’s (a mature female sheep) milk and sells it to generate income. Aramayis said he couldn’t describe how happy he was when his ewe gave birth to its first lamb. “Every morning when the sheep goes to the pasture I take the lamb to the nearest field to graze,” he said. ”I release it there and it starts to frolic with joy and play with me.” Aramayis has already Passed on the Gift® to another club member.

Over the last four years, Purdue University’s Department of Animal Sciences developed a week-long training in partnership with Heifer Romania. Students lived and worked with farm families as they performed daily duties like milking cows, collecting fodder and treating animals. Heifer Romania incorporated its work and asked the youth to develop an action plan to help farmers capitalize on dairy products. This relationship has also contributed to building and renovating animal housing and livestock welfare environments in Romania.

Invest in the youth of the world.

The Best Water Buffalo in Romania

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Aschileus-RomaniaStory by Katya Cengel; photo by Geoff Oliver Bugbee. Katya and Geoff are visiting Heifer projects in Romania and Armenia this week for World Ark magazine.

ASCHILEU, Romania—Ioan Copacean is animated when it comes to his water buffalo.

“My water buffalo is the best,” he says.

He does not have money to rent a tractor, so he cuts grass by hand to be turned into hay for the animal. Together with his wife, Ildico Gombas, he rebuilt an old mud brick shelter so his water buffalo can stay protected from the elements in the hills of Northern Romania where they live.

In past, Copacean found day labor jobs and even a short-term cleaning position, but his dream is to build his water buffalo herd to 18, like his neighbor, a man who has 18 cows. His first water buffalo was given to him by Heifer Romania in 2010 as part of a larger revitalization of water buffalo project that aims to reintroduce the hardy, milk-producing animals to villages where they were once common. So far, the program has provided 36 water buffalo to the community. The program also includes an artificial insemination component to help with breeding.

With only one buffalo at present, the milk it produces goes to his three children, Ildico, 10, Ioan, 8, and Dennis Daniel, 4. His oldest, Ildico, was born with a growth on her eye which he has been told should be examined by an eye doctor. But the family lacks the funds needed to see one. With more water buffalo will come more milk and hopefully more money to pay for a visit to the eye doctor for Ildico.

Some Yogurt But Not Nearly Enough

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Children in Pata Rat, Romania, receive a gift of yogurt from Heifer farmers.

Children in Pata Rat, Romania, receive a gift of yogurt from Heifer farmers.

Story by Katya Cengel; photos by Geoff Oliver Bugbee. Katya and Geoff are visiting Heifer projects in Romania and Armenia this week for Heifer’s World Ark magazine.

PATA RAT, Romania—In the valley below a landfill, on the edge of the Transylvanian city of Cluj-Napoca, sits a small slab structure. Chickens peck at the muddy yard out front and dogs play amid old tires and an even older scooter. In the corner of Marian Tomita’s yard are stacked nine trays filled with 20 yogurts each. Tomita lives just outside the settlement of Pata Rat, the largest Roma community in the Cluj region.

Pata Rat, Romania

Pata Rat, Romania

Founded after the 1989 revolution which saw the overthrow and execution of communist dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu, the settlement is home to around 700 Roma, or gypsies. They live in wood shacks on the trash-strewn hills that surround a landfill. For the last five years, Heifer Romania field assistant George Abrudan has brought milk and yogurt to the children every month. The dairy products are donated through Farmers Feed the Children, a Heifer program which provides cows to impoverished farmers who then donate a portion of their milk to orphans and others in need, like this Roma community.

Usually Abrudan shows up in a truck loaded with yogurts and milk, but on this gray February morning he has only 180 yogurts. He hasn’t visited since before Christmas and Tomita greets him with a warm smile. Unemployment is high in the village, says Tomita.

“When they see we are Roma they say they don’t have places for us,” he says.

Pataratblog-3Illiteracy also makes it difficult for many members of the community to find employment, with the majority having completed only four years of grade school, says Tomita. He cares for a church built by a charitable organization out of the Netherlands and provides the children with a warm meal every Thursday.

It is mid-morning, but still early in the community, and news of the yogurts spreads slowly. The children arrive in ones and twos and then threes and fours, the older ones holding the younger ones’ hands. Tomita lines them up against the wall and hands them each a yogurt. They remain where they are, hoping he will hand them another. One little boy of about 10 years old zips several into the chest of his well worn snowsuit; a girl maybe 9 years old wants to know when Abrudan will bring milk. She is thin, like all the others, and suffers from an upset stomach.

Cassandra doesn’t ask for anything, just waits patiently with one little brother balanced on her hip and another at her side. She is 10 years old and does not attend school. At Christmas someone gave the family of 10 several oranges and bananas, but usually they survive on potato or noodle soup.

Pataratblog-2Yogurts cradled gingerly in their small hands, the children head back down the road toward a hill dotted with one-room wood and plastic shacks. Crows and dogs scavenge amongst plastic bottles. Garbage trucks barrel toward the landfill over the hill where the children’s parents search for scrap metal to sell. In Tomita’s yard only the cardboard cartons that carried the yogurts remain.

“One hundred yogurts are not enough,” says Tomita. “You have to come with 500 or 600.”

He is inside his home now, looking out the window where he can see two small boys headed toward his door. The children will keep coming, asking for yogurts that are not there, and won’t be there until next month, when Abrudan returns.

Pataratblog-4

Irish Heifers Give Romania ‘Chance for All’

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Editor’s note: Story and photos submitted by Heifer Romania team

Heifer's Chance for All project launches in Zimnicea, Romania

Heifer's Chance for All project launches in Zimnicea, Romania.

The official launch of Heifer Romania’s Chance for All project started at noon on October 18 in Zimnicea, the southernmost region of Romania. The $2,464,300, or 1.9 million Euro, program was developed in collaboration with Heifer International, Heifer Romania, Bóthar Ireland and Danone Romania, with strong financial support from the Danone Ecosysteme investment fund.

Initial cattle beneficiaries are chosen through a lottery system

Project members wait for results of the lottery that determines the first cattle recipients.

The four-year Chance for All project is a socioeconomic program that will assist small farmer communities in five underdeveloped areas of the country.

The project aims to encourage small producers to work together to have long-term profitable businesses based on the production of high-quality milk. This initiative has a major training component, whereby farmers will participate in specialized courses on health, nutrition, and cattle reproduction and milking. This knowledge will enable them to obtain milk that is of European Union-quality standard.

Guests listen to a speaker at the Heifer project launch celebration.

Guests listen to a speaker at the Heifer project launch celebration.

In the first two years, more than 200 heifers will be distributed to 200 farm families. By the end of the project, 800 families will have benefited from the gift of heifers.

Chance for All will be implemented in two stages. The communities of Zimnicea, Cocorastii Colt and Belin will be assisted during the first year. The two remaining areas will be added at the beginning of the second year.

“Danone has made a long-term commitment to Romanian farmers and its partners. Year after year we have invested in sustaining milk production through programs oriented toward all types of farms, such as Danone Farm or Reaching West,” said Dieter Schulz, Danone CEO for Eastern and Southern Europe. “Chance for All is a new investment made by Danone for the sustainable development of Romanian zootechny and an aid for rebuilding, economically, families with low incomes.”

Irish heifers enter the quarantine farm.

Irish heifers enter the quarantine farm aboard two trucks.

“The project follows Heifer International’s main principle, Passing on the Gift®,” said Ovidiu Spinu, country director for Heifer Romania. “The families who receive heifers will pass on the gift, thus the initial support will multiply and the chain of beneficiaries will grow. By sustaining animal breeding, the milk quantity at European Union standards will grow and so will the families’ incomes.”

Bóthar Ireland sent 50 Irish heifers to Romania. They arrived on September 16 and were transported to a quarantine farm by a convoy of two trucks. The 50 farm families were determined by lottery draw and each heifer was sent to its new home on a small specialized vehicle.

Alexe's family welcomes their Irish heifer into its new home.

Alexe's family welcomes their Irish heifer into its new home.

“One month ago we sent the first heifers for the Chance for All project,” said David Moloney, CEO of Bóthar Ireland, in his message for the farmers of Zimnicea. “We loaded the animals somewhere in central Ireland, we crossed the sea to France, we drove over 1,800 miles, stopping twice at the ‘animal hotels’ and finally reached our destination: the quarantine farm in Oradea. Ten-thousand artificial insemination (AI) doses from the Holstein Frisian breed were also sent for this project, to maintain the pure Irish breed in the project’s locations. We hope that the gift from Ireland will bring you only satisfaction and aid you to develop your farm and that over the years, you, too, will be able to make such a gift.”

“Chance for All is a landmark project for all of us, bringing together a diverse set of partners to work with disadvantaged communities to achieve lasting economic and social impact,” said Pietro Turilli, vice president of Heifer’s Central and Eastern Europe program, in his letter of congratulations to the beneficiaries and partners involved in the complex project. “As you are all aware, the challenges for this project are significant, but then again, so are the potential rewards: building more resilient communities and linking them in a sustainable manner to markets through the provision of high-quality livestock, organization of community groups, social and technical training and assistance, and providing access to recognized and reliable market partners.”

With 30 journalists and bloggers attending, the celebration enjoyed good media coverage. Besides comments from local and regional authorities and messages sent from the USA and Ireland, two project members publicly expressed their thanks and commitment to achieving the objectives set for Zimnicea. “It was hard for me to believe that this place where nothing ever happens could become the pilot community for such an important people-oriented project,” said Mariana Moldoveanu, one of Heifer’s newest beneficiaries.

As the ceremony drew to a close and the first animals reached their new homes, we followed Alexe Ilie as his family welcomed their Irish heifer into its new home.

In Context: Rural Poor in Romania

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Poverty is most prevalent in rural Romania, where  little less than half of the population lives.  low agricultural productivity is a leading cause of poverty as poor small-scale farmers lack the resources that would let them invest in agricultural inputs and equipment to improve their incomes. And in rural areas there are limited opportunities for formal employment opportunities, partly because of minimum wage regulations, high payroll taxes and the rigid labor code. Inadequate social services, reflected in the poor condition of rural health centers, long distances to schools and poor sanitation facilities, also contribute to rural poverty.

Please visit http://www.heifer.ro/ to learn more about Heifer Romania and their work to help families achieve lives of self-reliance and sustainability.

10 Things: Romania

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41% of the Romanian population is at risk of poverty.

The capital of Romania is Bucharest and was once called “Paris of the East”

Agriculture is the primary industry and employs about 29% of the population

The Danube Delta is a World Heritage site and is Europe’s second largest delta.

The average life expectancy is 71 years old

Romania was an imperial colony of ancient Rome

The climate is very similar to the northeastern United States, with four distinct seasons.

Romania joined the European Union in 2007.

The colors of the Romanian flag are red, yellow and blue. They are said to represent the blood of the people that fought for the country (red), the grains that feed the people (yellow) and the sky (blue).

Irish author Bram Stroker based his novel Dracula on fifteenth century Wallachian Prince, Vlad Tepes of Romania.