DanChurchAid
India
A goat means a future
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| Padma Ram, Dani Devi with four of their children - and a goat. Photo: Line Wolf Nielsen |
Padma Ram and his wife Dani Devi have been married for 18 years and have five children. They live in a small clay house in a village in the Thar desert in India. The family own a bit of land where they grow pulses, green vegetables and water melon. Outside the house five tall hairy goats are grassing on dry leaves.
One year back the family bought five goats and a cow with money partly saved, partly given as a loan by SURE - a local organisation working in the district of Rajasthan.
"With five goats we don't have to purchase anything. We can make money on selling them, but we can also get milk, youghurt, and manure without having to buy," Padma Ram says.
A welcome weight-gain
| DanChurchAid in India |
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| DanChurchAid works in India through partner organisations. One of them is SURE, supporting poor families with loans, training and support. The Christmas Collection campaign in Denmark "Give a goat" has provided some of these funds. Read more on our christmas campaign... |
The extra income has so far been spend on animal husbandry and for sending the children to a good school.
"I want my youngest son to become Chief Minister," the father laughs.
His has noticed how his children grow up faster due to the nutritious dairy diet. His wife has also gained weight - which he thinks is for better.
SURE chose to support this family, as it otherwise would continue to live below the poverty line and be dependent on income from low and unstable daily labour wages.
In order to save up the money to buy the goats, both husband and wife worked on a road construction site, earning 100 Rps a day each. It took them 6 months of hard saving to collect the 3.000 Rps necessary to go to the goat fair. 500 Rps was a loan from a local self-help group.
Mother knows best
The goats had to be bought in the name of the woman in the household- a precondition from SURE.
Dani Devi shyly shares her happiness of being a goat owner.
"If my husband decided to destroy all funds and would sell the goats and go drinking with the money, well... now he can't a he needs the consent of his wife."
The goats grass freely in the rocky surroundings and find their own food in the desert. During the rainy season when the sowing of the fields takes placen the goats are tied up.
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