For Building Shelter and Arranging Food For Cows

Hi, Supporter"

Send a Cow supporters have already been incredibly generous this year, however, if you can spare a small gift today, we’ll put it in to action straight away to help families keep safe from COVID-19 and from falling back into poverty.

Many farmers are losing out on key times to sell their produce. This is compounded by leisure businesses being closed, a ban on public transport (produce is often sold by the roadside) and the falling prices in the agricultural sector, as more people migrate to work in rural locations with the hope of not contracting the disease as easily as in urban areas.

A lack of public transport also means many families we partner with cannot access healthcare. As we sure you can imagine, our life-changing training sessions have been greatly impacted. As movement is limited, there has been no household training visits and when group training of under 20 people can go ahead safely (with social distancing and wearing face masks), many farmers do not attend due to fear of catching COVID-19. We worried that our farmers' progress in learning sustainable growing techniques that will help them fight hunger and feed their families is being seriously interrupted. Families are focusing on the short-term goals of survival again instead of mid and long-term goals of improving their livelihoods for good.

Schools are currently closed, forcing children to stay at home and miss out on their education. This is even more dangerous for girls sent home from school as they become more exposed to exploitation and abuse. Vulnerable women and girls are also being economically exploited as they are viewed as cheap labour. We have seen violence against women increase as husbands are finding it more difficult to provide for their families.

Our volunteers are finding that farmers and their families are experiencing trauma, depression and stress for fear of falling back into poverty which they’ve worked so hard to escape - but we’re determined to make sure that doesn’t happen.

Tough times call for tough people and tough measures. This is the story of Send a Cow. Everyone is resolute about making a difference in the lives of our participants in spite of the hard times. We all recognize that this is not going to be easy, but we are prepared to give it our all.

Our focus on hygiene and sanitation continues with community awareness training, helping families to keep safe in the pandemic. Send a Cow trainers have worked tirelessly to be flexible and ensure our sustainable farming training sessions can go ahead in whatever capacity they can – often in smaller groups or now even over the phone!

Send a Cow trainers are also teaching families alternative ways of producing income, such as all groups receiving training in Garments making and some in baking and beekeeping. Links to market are then being mapped on behalf of farmers to ensure they can still sell their produce. Farmer groups are also receiving seeds so they can become local seed producers, empowering them to grow a sustainable business for their community.Kindly support us.

Thanking You

BARNAMALA EDUCATIONAL AND CULTURAL SOCIETY