Empowering India's Rural Poor through Poultry

You may have noticed in the news over the last few weeks that Bill Gates has announced he will be donating 100,000 chickens to extremely poor families in Sub-Saharan Africa.  Here is what he published on his blog in June 2016:

'If you were living on $2 a day, what would you do to improve your life?

That’s a real question for the nearly 1 billion people living in extreme poverty today. There’s no single right answer, of course, and poverty looks different in different places. But through my work with the foundation, I’ve met many people in poor countries who raise chickens, and I have learned a lot about the ins and outs of owning these birds. (As a city boy from Seattle, I had a lot to learn!) It’s pretty clear to me that just about anyone who’s living in extreme poverty is better off if they have chickens.

In fact, if I were in their shoes, that’s what I would do - I would raise chickens.'

Click here to read GatesNotes

As you know, this has indeed been our approach to fighting poverty in India with our flagship Poultry Development Services Programme.  Since we launched the programme in villages near Kolkata in 2011, we have worked with over 7,600 home farmers, teaching them how to raise chickens, sell their produce (and feed the family too) and develop a successful enterprise from home to earn a much needed income for the family.

In his blog, Bill Gates goes on to say why he would choose chickens if he were living in poverty.  His reasons tally with why we chose this livelihood enterprise for our beneficiaries:

• They are easy and inexpensive to take care of
• They are a good investment
• They help keep children healthy
• They empower women

Although Bill didn't contact us personally before he launched his poultry initiative in Africa, we would gladly share with him the knowledge we have built up over the last five years - the successes and the challenges.  And we continue to enjoy sharing our achievements with you and all our supporters, without whom we would not be able to help the thousands of women, men and children living in poverty that we do now.

On that note, we are delighted to let you know that Shivia has been shortlisted for International Charity of the year award by Charity Times. The award ceremony is in London in September and we will be there ready to collect the award if we win! 

So thank you for support.  You are helping to change the lives of many, many poor farmers by offering them the opportunity to boost their income, work their way out of poverty and provide for their families, and we know they are fovever grateful to you for that.

With best wishes from the Shivia team