Goats and Donkeys Transform Lives in Darfur

We are being asked if we are able to help, amidst the fighting, or should people wait to support us.  

Please do not wait.   We need to be ready to help the minute it is possible.   Waiting will endanger children’s lives.

We can understand the concerns – that whatever is provided might not reach where it should, or perhaps even be destroyed, or stolen. 

But luckily, our villages are not targeted because of what we provide - because all of our projects are low key.

Goats, donkeys and chickens are life-saving to our families in Darfur but they are not high-status animals like camels, horses, cows and sheep.  

Similarly, farm tools, mosquito nets, blankets, transform children's lives, but are not wanted by soldiers. 

What has been happening instead is that people have been moving to our villages because they know they will have a better chance of survival.

So we are determined to adopt more villages as soon as we possibly can – but we need your help to do so.

For each village we adopt, we will give the poorest families 5 Goats each and provide Donkeys to carry heavy loads.

So we need your help in providing as many Goats & Donkeys as possible!

Please will you consider donating to our Animal projects to help us achieve our goal and be able to adopt another 5 villages?

Please don't wait. Your donations will be sure to reach those in dire need and make a difference just when they need them most.

Thank you so much.

Just look at these beautiful photos of delighted women with their new donkeys. Donkeys that will change their lives, all thanks to you!

These ladies, living in the rural villages we adopted last year - Hillat Sabil, Hillat Um Gadeer and Kudeil - have been chosen to receive a local breed donkey each - and this is the day they first received them. 

Can you imagine what their new donkey means to each one of them?

These villages are located in one of the most deprived regions in the world. Isolated from civilisation, thousands of miles away from the regional capital of Sudan, Khartoum, there are no roads, no infrastructure.

In the absence of roads, people must walk. For food, clean water, and firewood.

A family has to walk miles every day, just to survive. And return home with heavy loads.

Just imagine how time-consuming and backbreaking this must be!

A donkey can change all this.

A donkey takes people to collect water, firewood, to go to market, to take people the many miles to hospital. Donkeys take children to school, they carry the old, the weak and the disabled.

Donkeys make life possible - just.

With the current situation in Darfur, donkeys are needed more than ever to ensure the quickest passage of children and their families to food, water and safety.

Please will you consider donating a donkey to help families reach the most basic of necessities and save lives in Darfur?

I thought you would be fascinated – and delighted – to hear of yet more evidence that giving goats makes a massive difference to the deprived families in Darfur.

Our team in Darfur recently visited Matway, a village which we adopted in 2018, which is the most successful of the 5 villages adopted that year. 

Hana lives in Matway. She is 32 years old, married, with 3 girls and 4 boys, 3 of whom are at school.

In November 2018, Hana was chosen by the village to receive 5 goats to provide protein-rich milk to her malnourished children and one cross-bred donkey to help carry heavy loads.

Hana and her children helped care for the goats, grazing them around the village and taking them to the village hand pump to drink water. The donkey would help carry the water back home for the family and their animals.

Hana followed the local Paravet's advice, using worm drugs for the goats every 2 or 3 weeks and collecting groundnuts, hay and leaves from her farm to feed her goats.

In the first year, her little flock increased to 15 goats and in the second year, the flock became 25 goats.

After two years, in 2020, the village of Matway was ready to revolve the goat loan so each family that had benefitted from the goat loan should have passed on 5 goats to the second generation of beneficiaries.

By this time, Hana had 35 goats.

But sadly Covid hit.

In Darfur there is no diagnosis and no treatment – no ventilators in rural hospital and little oxygen which has to be brought from Khartoum and fuel is scarce. With Covid rife, the villagers had no option but to close and prevent gatherings.

So, sadly, the goat rotation had to be postponed for two years.

Unbelievably, by 2022 Hana's little flock grew to a staggering 95 goats!! This is the largest number of goats any one of our beneficiary families has owned!

Not only could she support her own family with better meals, but she also gave surplus milk to her neighbours' famillies and the village school teacher.

It was agreed within the village that, whilst the goat rotation couldn't take place, the beneficiaries could benefit by selling some of their billy goats, whilst keeping the nanny goats for the postponed rotation.

By selling two of her billy goats, Hana was able to prepare her farm by purchasing seeds and renting a tractor for her farm plough.

Another two billy goats helped treat her son Ahmed, who had suffered a compound fracture in his left hand, at El Fasher hospital.

The sale of two more billy goats helped Hana buy school uniform and books for her children and yet another two billy goats allowed Hana to purchase three iron beds, mattresses, sheets and curtains for her home.

The local breed donkey that Hana was given has also changed her life. The donkey helps carry water from the village hand pumps 7km away, is loaded up with hay and the harvest to take home, ploughs a part of the farm, helps carry things which Hana can sell at the local market, takes her to the neighbouring village to participate in events, and also acts as an ambulance to take patients to the nearest health unit.  

It just goes to show how our Goats and Donkeys really do transform lives!

And it's all thanks to YOU!! We are so grateful for all your support!  Thankfully Covid is now contained and rotations are all happening as planned. 

The time has almost come for us to select the villages we can support this year - an exciting prospect but heart-breaking for those we have to turn down.

Could you help us by donating Goats and Donkeys for us to give to the poorest families? Just think how many lives you can help us change, just like Hana's...

We do everything we can to show people how, if looked after properly, goats are life savers for the poorest families in the world.   Over in the UK, on Saturday 8th October we held our annual Fly Fishing Event: Fishing for Goats! And what an extraordinary day it was at Park Lake, Albury, in Surrey.   It is such a privilege to be allowed sole use of this magical place - thanks to the Duke of Northumberland.

We were blessed with summer conditions, still waters, blue skies, and absolutely beautiful sunshine. Although this did not make the fishing very easy, everyone had a fantastic time and have said they want to come again next year!

"It is so wonderful to see people really enjoying themselves!"   said Patricia Parker OBE, Founder of Kids for Kids. "Fishing is one of my joys but I have virtually no time away from my desk so our Fishing Day is a special treat for me too!. We raised enough money to provide 38 Goats! That's FIVE GOATS each for SEVEN families.  Think of that!"

These Goats will provide vital protein-rich milk for starving chidren and as the flock grows provide a desperately needed income for their mothers.   But there are many more families in need of goats.  This is why we are so grateful to you for your help. This has been one of the worst year's to date, without our wonderful supporters we would be powerless to help. People across Sudan are suffering from the worst food shortage for years.  

We are not an emergency organisation, but when no one else is helping families in rural Darfur villages we have had no choice - we cannot let people or animals starve.  This is why we are asking not only for your support, but to tell others too how much even the smallest help will make a difference.  Perhaps you can plan a fun event though it may not be a Fishing Day! 

We did well with our Fishing Day in England, but need many more life-saving Goats for families to help them nourish their starving chidren and give them hope for the future.   

We would be so incredibly grateful!

For our new villages, adopted in 2022, this is an incredibly exciting time of year!

This is when the Goat Beneficiaries - the poorest families who will receive 5 Nanny Goats each - are chosen.

These families are democratically chosen by the Village Steering Committee - which has also been democratically appointed by the villagers.

When Patricia Parker OBE set up Kids for Kids, she asked "but won't other families be jealous if they are not also receiving 5 Nanny Goats?"

"No," came the answer - "those families will be happy that they now don't need to support the poorer families by sharing their own meagre rations."

In Hillat Um Gadeer, one of the 5 villages adopted by Kids for Kids in 2022, 28 famiiles have been chosen to receive 5 Nanny Goats each. There will also be a Billy Goat for every three families in each village to be shared between the families who also take turns to look after him. 

After two years, our sustainable Goat Loan ensures that, once the little flocks have grown, 5 Nanny Goats will be passed on from each of these families to another family to benefit. So in two years, another 28 families will benefit, and then after another 2 years, another 28 families, and another 28 and so on.  Each family passing on goats then owns the remaining flock - which provides an income for the mothers.   "When crops fail" says Patricia "owning a flock of goats is quite literally a life saver.   The income from the sale of male goats and the milk and yogurt - and some have enough to make cheese too - is often the first time a mother can make decisions for her own family."

Hakima's family is one of the lucky Goat beneficiaries in Hillat Um Gadeer.

Hakima is 35 years old and is married with 6 chidren - 5 boys and a girl.

Her husband, Ibrahim, is a farmer.

During the rainy season, Hakima and her families crops failed totally. They now have no millet and no sorghum stock.

Hakima's only ambition is to find food for her children each day. It's the only thing that keeps her going.

"This year has been very difficult," Hakima says. "It's like war days. My youngest child is so malnourished I have to walk to Kerkara village health unit - which is a long way away across the sand - to get emergency plummy nuts for her."

But our Goat Loan will change Hakima's life and give her and her family hope.

The Goats will provide nutritious milk and desperately-needed vitamins and protein to strengthen their young bones, teeth and even brain cells.

Hakima will have the option to sell any excess Goat's milk and yoghurt to earn herself a living.

For the first time, Hakima will be able to look to the future, rather than just living day-to-day.

Hakima will be able to make decisions for herself and her family, be able to save for the future, plan an education for her chidren, a life out of poverty.

WE REALLY ARE CHANGING LIVES, ONE GOAT AT A TIME.

But we now need to buy the goats for all of these families.

Could you help us by donating a Goat - or five for a whole family? 

We are so grateful for your support, we really can't do it without you - and just think of the smiles those Goats will bring!