Time to Get Your Goat: Passing on the Gift Unites Communities

By Donna Stokes

October 3, 2019

Last Updated: March 9, 2011

Video by Geoff Oliver Bugbee

CEO Pierre Ferrari reflects on the beauty, pageantry and sustainability of Passing on the Gift as an afternoon ceremony in Shaktikhor, Nepal, continues behind him. In the images from the Shaktikhor ceremony, the women in the green saris are the donors, passing on goats to recipients in red saris. The spirit of the day shines on the women's faces as they sing, dance and playfully slap the honorary red tikka dust all over each others' faces to bursts of applause.

The visit featured a Farmer's Field School or a kind of goat science fair, that showed the community's results of better feed and care for goats compared with previous methods of raising the animals. The women in the groups now consider themselves not just caretakers of the animals, but also doctors and experts in pen building and feed mixing for optimum results.