From the Field: Dreams Become Reality

Posted on May 21, 2013 by Chelsey McNiel

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

Gegham, a 13-year-old rural youth engaged in Heifer Armenia’s Young Agriculturists Network of Armenia (YANOA) project, dreamed of establishing his own duck farm. He developed a business plan through his local YES! Youth Club and was awarded a $100 seed grant to put his plan into action. His little farm quickly grew and Gegham passed on his seed grant to another youth. He said he does his best to learn about the ducks well-being and how to give proper care.

Thirteen-year- old Gegham started a duck farm using a $100 seed grant from Heifer Armenia. Photo by Anna Arakelyan, Business Education Expert, Development Principles NGO

In Vietnam, one Heifer family is enhancing their impact with promising results. Tran Thi Cuc Huong and her husband, Nguyen Van Lieu, grow coconuts, dragon fruit and morning glory and raise chickens and pigs. They use a biogas system to turn pig manure into methane for cooking and electricity, which also prevents their ponds from being polluted. Huong said their dreams of expanding and helping others only became a reality with hard work, creativity and knowledge from Heifer’s trainings.

For 61 new project families in Gui Xi Village, China, the dream of ending hunger and poverty is taking its first steps. The village’s first Passing on the Gift® (POG) ceremony in April 2013, presented these families with gifts of livestock and welcomed them into a community achieving promising results of improved living conditions, education and health. The new families agreed to Pass on the Gifts and continue to spread unity and love in their community.

Learn how you can help dreams become reality

Don’t Be a Rat, Unpack!

Posted on May 17, 2013 by Chelsey McNiel

Every week we feature a fun and/or educational activity you can try at home or in the classroom. Today is National Pack Rat Day and like pack rats, some of us tend to collect more belongings than we really need. Here at Heifer International we encourage people to practice Sharing and Caring, one of Heifer’s 12 Cornerstones for Just and Sustainable Development. If you’ve got some things to unpack, here are a few options to lighten your load.

Photo credit: oddlovescompany.com

Hold a Clothing Swap
Donating old clothing is helpful, but a swap can make a more direct impact in your neighborhood or organization. Ask participants to bring a few articles of clothing and then have fun haggling over the trades. A swap can also be done with shoes, toys and books.
Upcycle With Style
Old T-shirts for quilt squares, abandoned toys as planters and plastic grocery bags to make trash cans-Pinterest is filled with DIY instructions. Inventive minds are a powerful tool in caring for the earth. Before you recycle, try to find ways to upcycle the weary and worn things in your cluttered closets.
Give Your Time
If you have a “load” of time on your hands, why not use it to help others organize their abundant belongings? Or, use it in other meaningful ways like taking a meal to new parents, offering to walk your elderly neighbor’s dog or care for the Earth by picking up trash.

Through cooperation and friendship, there are many ways to share and care. Be creative and get involved in your community. Small acts of kindness will spread, building a large network of giving to Pass on the Gift® of hope, unity and friendship.

Learn how you can spend meaningful time at Heifer

Sharing and Caring in Honduras

Posted on May 3, 2012 by Brooke Edwards

Following a recent Heifer Study Tour to Honduras, Virginia Tech students were given an assignment: Choose one photograph from the trip and explain why you chose it and which of Heifer’s 12 Cornerstones for Just and Sustainable Development it embodies. Over the course of this week, we’ll share these images and words to give you a look at how much of an impact seeing Heifer’s work in the field can have. Read other posts in the series here.

Laina Schneider, Crops Soils & Environmental Science, VA Tech: Historically water has brought people together. Water supports and enables life. Oases in the desert provide habitat and have been centers for trade and discourse for thousands of years. In the bible wells are a meeting or resting place in town centers. Lost access or destroyed wells could devastate entire cities. Throughout literature, wells are also a symbol for life. All over the world, water is a source of transportation, inspiration, utility and spirituality. People also seem to aggregate around water, in the formation of living spaces and as a place for shared community. Similarly in Copantle, this wash basin lies at the center of their cluster of homes. Throughout our days in Copantle, I observed women and children constantly gathered around this tub – washing dishes, washing clothes, washing hair or just congregating and chatting. I took this particular photo on the walk down to Angelina’s home in the morning of our last day of work. Beautiful mountains provide the backdrop, the ridges lined with fruit trees and cornfields. I feel that this wash tub is a symbol of unity within the Copantle community. It provides a space for sharing and a forum for conversation and story telling. It embodies the familial relationships built within this town and can be an avenue through which the word about Heifer’s projects can be spread. This symbolic place best suits the Heifer Cornerstone of Accountability. Dialogue transpiring during daily chores such as washing is informal, but comfortable, and can be a great way to share news of projects, invite others to come and learn, follow-up with friends, coordinate, or make plans to ultimately achieve common goals. This spot can provide an avenue for holding people accountable and an environment to share successes. Similarly, the CAFS cornerstone of Civic Engagement and Democratic Participation is relevant. By creating an space where dialogue can flow freely through daily routine, people may be more comfortable discussing community problems. Conversation here also requires no separate commitment or responsibility of trying to capture people’s interest in a more formal setting. It is meeting people where they are, and gauging interest in a place that makes the most sense. In this way, developing strategies to overcome community issues also becomes easier. This place of gathering can help to build trust and stronger relationships within Copantle, while making the Heifer projects at Angelina’s farm accessible to the community at large. With water as a symbol of life, it is natural that the wash basin be a place where people come together to foster life in their own community.

Amanda Karstetter, Humanities, Science, & Environ, VA Tech: There were countless moments on our trip that I wanted to use for my photovoice, but I picked this picture because words are simply not enough to express how welcomed I felt during our brief visit in Cerro Azul. The children there were so ecstatic to see us all, even though the majority of us were strangers to them. I felt like we were all old friends just stopping by for a visit, and this picture spoke to me because I took it right as we started to drive away. It hurt knowing that I will most likely never see those kids again, but I also knew at that moment that I had found my picture for my photovoice.

The Heifer Cornerstone that I feel that this picture speaks the most to is Sharing and Caring. The people of Cerro Azul shared their village with Virginia Tech twice and, while I cannot speak for the group that went last year, I felt incredibly welcomed. Everyone in that community seemed very kind and while we were there I could not help but wonder how much better off and further along civilization would be right now if everyone was like Cerro Azul in being open to working with each other to make their community significantly stronger.

The CAFS Cornerstone that I relate to this picture is Civic Engagement and Democratic Participation. One of the big factors of this cornerstone is trusting relationships, which really exemplifies Heifer’s relationship with the members of Cerro Azul. There is evidence of Civic Engagement and Democratic Participation in the background, where you can see a few of the new brick houses that most likely would not have been possible without Heifer’s knowledge and resources. Also, we were helping to create a stronger network between the members of that community and the students, faculty, and Heifer employees, to help encourage future projects with that community and to help us learn how to better help other communities like Cerro Azul in the future.

Experiential Learning for VA Tech Students in Honduras

Posted on May 2, 2012 by Brooke Edwards

Susan Clark: This photograph portrays the coming together of two families from different communities (Copantle and Cerro Azul). It represents a remarkable transformation where communities are crossing boundaries to share capacities that is seemingly atypical in Honduras. Last year we worked in the Cerro Azul community building homes and only visited Copantle. This year we returned to Copantle to work on projects with Angelina’s family and together (full participation) helped assemble a biodigestor, build a foundation for a farm school, and plant a variety of crops. Angelina is a visionary and exceptionally wise leader who embodies all the Heifer cornerstones. Working with Heifer her vision has provided the framework for food sovereignty and cultivated and promoted a healthy community. The Copantle community’s dream to build a just and sustainable community came to fruition thanks to the inspirational leadership of one of their members, Angelina passing on the gift of her knowledge and animal resources to so many others living in the community which has helped move them towards self-sufficiency. The income generated from their Heifer resources has continued to provide new opportunities to enhance their lives. The Civic Agriculture and Food Systems Minor Cornerstones that this photo denotes are food security/sovereignty, ecological stewardship, healthy community, economic viability, and experiential learning.

Laurel Heile, Landscape Architecture, VA Tech: This photo voice embodies the Heifer Cornerstones of Sharing and Caring and Full Participation and the CAFS Minor Cornerstone of Experiential Learning. The entire trip was about connecting and showing our support and commitment to the people we met in Honduras through projects, speakers, and Heifer Honduras staff. This was especially poignant birding the language barrier. This photo represents the countless times students creatively figured out ways to interact with those we met. This photo shows Jairo passing around his phone with photos of his son as we also passed around pictures of our families too. It was a moment of sincere interest in each other’s lives and backgrounds and full participation as we communicated enthusiastically with our limited Spanish and Jairo similarly with his English skills. It was a great moment where enthusiasm and caring overcame the mechanics of language. This also represents the mission of the Experiential Learning cornerstone for the CAFS Minor. It is all about getting out of the day to day and normal environment and seeing and doing things first hand, which makes the learning experience that much more powerful and lasting.