Tag Archives: war

Ugandan Family Moves From IDP Camp to Self-Reliance

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Story and photos by Dan Bazira


While many families in northern Uganda are still traumatized after 20 years of brutality by the Lord’s Resistance Army, Fred and Florence Otem have overcome this harrowing situation.

The couple lives in Coopee village, Bungatira Sub County in Gulu District in Uganda. They have three children: Atimango Winnie (10), Omony Phillip (8) and Ogik Simple (6). All of the children attend St. Martin Primary School in Lukome.

On life in the camp for internally displaced people (IDP)

Life was difficult during the war. I lost my relatives while young and dropped out of school since I had to be a caretaker for my five siblings. One day, I witnessed my relatives being scythed to death by the rebels. After being frustrated with my life, I decided to get a wife at the age of 17 years; this was to be a source for comfort,” Otema said. 

But to his surprise, this added more burden to him in terms of sustaining the two independent families: his and the one of his late father.

Being jobless and living in an IDP camp, his children were not going to school since he had no money to pay for their school materials.

We would eat one meal a day. Paying for hospital bills and clothing for the family was not easy. I had no hope of getting any monthly paying job. I tried to work on a per-day wage job as a potter at house construction sites, but the payment could not meet my family needs.

On the journey to self-reliance

Upon our return from the IDP camp in 2009, I developed an interest in a local women’s group that had established links with Heifer International in Uganda. I started going for training and preparing to receive an animal along with my wife. We had hope in this project in terms of changing our livelihood. 

Indeed God answered our prayer. We received a cow in March 2010, which had a calf and started milking. The cow gives us 22 liters (5.8 gallons) of milk per day. Today we are proud that we are no longer beggars of food and basic requirements, but we are donors within our community.

Thanks to Heifer, we earn $240 per month from milk sales. Imagine a poorly educated man like me earning that much per month! Today, our children go to better schools. We eat a very good and balanced diet. This job is easy to do, and we do it as a family.

My wife is an inspiration. 
Describing her husband, Florence said:

He is an understanding, loving and caring husband. He will never make decisions without involving us as a family, and with trainings received from Heifer Project International on family planning, we resolved to only have three children and provide for them up to university level. We currently opened up a joint savings account as a family, an indication of unity.

Living beyond the borders
To date, the family has more than 1,500 pine trees, 100 budded oranges and other varieties of fruit trees like avocado, jackfruit, tangerines and lemons. They also have harvested a lot of onions, which they expect to sell and earn more than $800 this year. The kitchen gardens around the home are a source of vegetables throughout the year, including selling in the local market and donating to those in need.

Florence said:

The use of energy saving stoves now saves my time because I no longer waste a lot of time looking for firewood. My husband now even helps in cooking food. Before it was difficult to convince him to cook food because he would complain of a lot of smoke from the traditional three stone cook stove. 

We suffered in the camp, entirely depending on relief aid, but today we move around the village mobilizing and training youths at no cost on sustainable agriculture practices because we do not want them suffer, too.

Looking forward

The future for this family is bright; they have already secured iron sheets to construct a permanent house and graduate from a semi-permanent house. They also intend to construct a domestic biogas plant for lighting and cooking after the permanent house construction. The family further intends to open up more land to grow vegetables and also increase their dairy herd. Many times when donations are given, it may appear to be meager, but the impact they bring to the families in terms of rebuilding their lives will never be regretted.

The family is grateful to Heifer International for the support. The Otema family is a living testimony of how Heifer ends hunger and poverty and cares for the Earth through sustainable approaches. “We thank Heifer International for having provided unto us this animal and the psycho-social support that has helped us forget the past and focus upon the future,” concluded Otema. 

On International Day of the Disappeared, A Story of Healing

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Today is the International Day of the Disappeared – a day dedicated to awareness of those who disappear in connection with armed conflict or other violence. On their website, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) states that relatives of missing persons “suffer immensely as they struggle to find out what became of the missing person.” They go on to say…

More needs to be done to help the thousands of families of missing persons. On 30 August, the International Day of the Disappeared, the ICRC is highlighting their plight, and explaining what the organization is doing to help.

In Nepal, Heifer International and the ICRC are working together to provide rehabilitation and healing to the families affected psychologically and economically by conflicts in that nation. Our teammates in Nepal created the video below to tell this story. 

Happiness is Coming Back in Armenia

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Submitted by Liana Hayrapetyan,  Communication and PR Officer,
Heifer Armenia



In the years leading up to the war between Armenia and Azerbaijan, the Poghosyan family was one of the friendliest and hardest working families in the village of Nerqin Hand in the Syunik region of Armenia. Arkadi Poghosyan was doing his best to support his family. Every evening when he came home from work, his children ran happily to him. 
Every evening the family all gathered together and enjoyed their supper in a warm and friendly atmosphere around the fireplace in winter and in the open-air balcony in summer.
The Poghosyans were very happy. Respect, love and mutual understanding were reigning in every corner of their house. They couldn’t even guess what fate had prepared for them.
It was a cold winter morning when the grievous news spread all over the village: Arkadi had been killed in the war.
The heavy burden of the family fell to Arkadi’s wife, Anush. She had to support her four children and her father-in-law. Arkadi’s eldest son, Vardan, was 16 then. He understood that it was very hard for his mother to carry the family burden alone; he knew that he was to help the family overcome the difficulties. It was indeed hard for young Vardan to work in the barn, in the garden and in the field, as he even did not know how to use a scythe.
The grandfather insisted on giving up livestock farming as he was too old to help Anush and Vardan. On the other hand, Vardan was too young to run the farm alone and Anush could not manage to do it together with the daily housework and children’s care.
Though the war had ended, many Armenians were suffering from post-war hunger and poverty. Only one cow was left to feed and support the family.
Vardan grew up, served in the army, and took the responsibility as breadwinner of the family. He had a vision in his mind, to have a happy and large family as once they used to have when his father was still alive. Soon he married Hermine, a beautiful young lady from the neighboring village, and they became parents of two wonderful children.
Vardan was doing his best to support his family of seven. When Heifer Armenia started a program in Nerqin Hand, Vardan’s family was on the list of future project participants. In November 2008 the Poghosyans received a cow from Heifer Armenia.

Now Vardan’s children, Aren, 4, and Arkadi, 5 months, have fresh milk and other dairy products every day. The family sometimes sells some of the milk to buy other products. Their cow has given birth to two calves, one male and one female.
Vardan’s vision of an ideal family has become reality. Now the Poghosyans live a happy and carefree life as they did once many years ago. They enjoy wonderful sunny mornings in the summer and warm and cheerful evenings in the winter in front of the fireplace with a cup of hot tasty tea prepared with mint and other herbs gathered from the Syunik fields and mountains.

Heifer: After The War

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Heifer International country director Rashid Sesay shares his vision for the organization’s work in Sierra Leone

by Bill Fitzgerald

If you’re reading this now, that phrase is probably at least mildly familiar. World War II… The Korean War… The Vietnam War… The Civil War in Sierra Leone.

We’re not a relief agency: those valiant folks go in often while the bullets are still flying, or the storm tide is receding, God bless ‘em. Heifer focuses on what comes after… how do people who are devastated by war, or just born into devastating circumstances, rebuild—or build—lives where they have enough food, can send their kids to school, pay for needed medicines or improve their living conditions?

Over the years, that focus has taken us into Poland, Germany, Russia, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia… and lately, Sierra Leone. The Civil War in Sierra Leone (1991-2000) was brutal, possibly more so because it wasn’t born in Sierra Leone but in neighboring Liberia, and imported by the rebels of General Charles Taylor, now on trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Even before the war, Sierra Leone was a poor country. Today, 70% of its population lives in poverty; it’s ranked in the bottom five on the UN’s Human Development Index.; the average annual income is about $750; 2/3 of the adult population are illiterate. And the civil war did this beautiful country no favors: 50,000 were killed; almost the same number were maimed, usually by the rebels’ trademark of having hands or feet hacked off; staple crop production dropped 70%; and 90% of all livestock were killed or taken away.

A small ray of light entered the country three years ago when Heifer International’s Sierra Leone country office opened under the direction of Rashid Sesay, a native (country directors are always natives in the country where they work). Heifer’s work fit in perfectly with the government’s Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper; agricultural development and food security are key foundations for economic growth and poverty reduction. And as it is with the Heifer model, the government has targeted smallholder farmers to provide better access to markets and processing facilities.

To fully understand the situation in Sierra Leone today, imagine if U.S. farmers had been forced to flee the countryside and settle in cities. Imagine everything you buy at the grocery store had to be imported from another country. Imagine there were no livestock. Imagine only 8% of the roads were paved. Imagine there were people from neighboring countries taking refuge and placing extra strain on the faltering infrastructure. Imagine tens of thousands of women in your area who had been raped by an invading force and who now had to support themselves and the children they’d borne, the “living scar.”

But then, imagine you came across this idea of sharing and caring. Of treating women with respect and dignity. Of providing for those in genuine need. Of justice. Even, of passing on the gift. Then, things start to change.

And the change is working. Starting in Kailahun District in the east, the first area affected by the civil war and the last area to be disarmed, Heifer Sierra Leone now works with some 5,000 families in four projects around the country. It’s a humble start, but Rashid Sesay has a vision of doing great things. “My vision is that Heifer Sierra Leone will go to every part of the country and have more capacity to target more families.”

Bill Fitzgerald is Heifer International’s creative director. You can read his previous posts about project visits in Sierra Leone here. 

Echoes of War

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The civil war in Guatemala that began in 1960 dragged on until 1996, and every once in a while the security situation still seems a little hinky. The dangers today aren’t related to the war per se, but they’re certainly fed by the massive displacement, uncertainty and poverty that so many years of fighting caused.

The State Department website for U.S. travelers warns of high rates of kidnappings and murders. It’s chilling, although I’m happy to report that during my two trips to Guatemala in the past 5 years I was met only with kindness and never felt unsafe.

Private security is a booming industry in Guatemala, where the well-to-do always seem to travel with bodyguards. And pretty much every business in Guatemala City is manned by an armed guard. It’s hard to get used to. In Flores, a charmer of a town that sits on a pretty island in the Peten region of Guatemala, it was hard to imagine anything bad happening. But I suppose it does. As soon as the sun set every night, this fellow took his post to stand guard at our hotel gate.

Photo by Russell Powell

Austin Bailey and Russ Powell traveled to Guatemala earlier this month to visit Heifer Projects there. You can read about their visit in World Ark magazine.

Child’s Play in Guatemala

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In La Union, in Guatemala’s northeastern jungle, a community displaced during the long and bloody civil war has returned from its 14-year temporary home in Mexico to reclaim its Guatemalan roots. Although the land they live on now is far from the village they were forced to abandon in 1982, they’re doing their best to embrace their new home. The children in this video will have to work hard on their remote chunk of land far from any good roads and reliable water sources. But those worries will weigh on them soon enough. For now, it’s time to play.

Children in La Laguna Perdida from Heifer International on Vimeo.

Video by William Russell Powell

Austin Bailey and Russ Powell visited Guatemala last week to check in on Heifer projects there. You can read about what they found in World Ark magazine.