The Hungry Months, goat loans and praying for rain

The Hungry Months, goat loans and praying for rain

It is hard to grasp the fragility of life in Darfur unless you have lived it.  The Hungry Months, as our beneficiaries call them, mark the seeming eternity that stretches from the day last year’s crop runs out, to the day the next crop is harvested.  One of our village committee leaders tells us:  “We know that our seed grain must have rain to grow, and so we have to wait, not knowing when we can plant, and when there will be food again.”

These are harsh times in Darfur, where inflation means families cannot afford to buy food, and the risk of attack makes it very dangerous to go out and forage.  Children all over Darfur are going to bed hungry.  They are malnourished and weak.  Some have already starved.  Parents need urgent help to save their little ones.

Kids for Kids is helping.   When the rains do come, we will see only a few precious minutes of rain, and it will sink into the sand, but for a few short weeks it is enough for basic crops like millet to grow.  Our farm tools and water harvesting training help villagers to be prepared, and make the most of the opportunity when the rains come.   In the mean time we wait, and with no other protein available it is our little goats and their precious milk that save lives.  With your support we can provide goat loans for milk to feed starving babies and nourish hungry children right away.  We have adopted 8 villages in 2015, and we are going to need 1,992 goats to help the poorest 15% of families with a goat loan.  Will you help us please?

$62 / £38  provides a goat for milk to feed hungry children

$372  / £228 provides 6 goats – a goat loan for a family (and they pass on 6 kids to the next family after 2 years)

$45  / £30 provides water harvesting training

$45  / £30 provides a set of farm tools so they don’t dig by hand

$75  / £45 provides 20 hardy tree seedlings for a new food source close to home

$45  / £30 provides training to care for the animals (we only give goat loans after training)

$600  / £370 trains a paravet – there is no other animal care

Thank you for your support.

Click here and find out how to donate now.  Thank you!