Heifer

Heifer, its history, programs and partners summarized.

A US farmer named Dan West was handing out rations of milk to hungry children during the Spanish Civil War when it hit him that “these children don’t need a cup, they need a cow!”

West, who was serving as a Church of the Brethren relief worker, was forced to decide who would receive the limited rations and who wouldn’t. This kind of aid, he knew, would never be enough. Once the cup or the bag of milk powder would be finished the aid had finished. So West returned home to form ‘Heifers for Relief’, dedicated to ending hunger permanently by providing families with livestock and training so that they “could be spared the indignity of depending on others to feed their children.”

In 1944, the first shipment of 17 heifers left Pennsylvania for Puerto Rico going to families whose malnourished children had never even tasted milk. The choice was for heifers because those are young cows that haven’t yet given birth, that makes them perfect not only for supplying a continued source of milk, but also for supplying a continued source of support through their off-spring. Indeed each family receiving a heifer agrees to “pass on the gift” and donate the female offspring or appropriate equivalent to another family. In that way the gift of food should be never-ending. This simple idea of giving families a source of food rather than short-term relief caught on and continued for over 65 years.

Times and needs change, and eventually other and bigger programs were initiated by the organization that is now named Heifer International. Different species were incorporated like goats, chickens, etc., and livelihood became the next issue after the initial narrow focus on milk. As a learning organization listening to farmers, and looking at technical possibilities, nature and markets, it was obvious imported dairy cows were far from always the solution to local problems. And as such the ‘technical input’ projects became more broader community development oriented programs, and nowadays micro enterprise, rural and urban development programs are part of the Heifer intervention. Even facilitating establishment of other independent organisations like Heifer Nederland, Heifer South Africa, Send a Cow (partner in UK) became an issue. Instead of multiplying the effect of Heifer’s work through centralized growth, the option of multiplying the effects by duplicating and decentralizing growth is being explored. Since 1944, the global Heifer network has assisted over 9 million people in more than 125 countries; 8 independent national organizations are (further) developed.

The unique approach of all Heifer programs continues to be based on the notion of ‘passing on the gift’. Heifer’s most striking qualities are simplicity and effectiveness, a common sense approach that works. But the challenge with a growing and successful network is that its successful livestock programs can even become their own obstacle: they can flood local markets, pollute the environment, put up parallel systems, etc. As such in the last decades new approaches are being developed: e.g. food chain and producer organization approaches.

Heifer Nederland itself was established as a foundation (July 1st, 1999), a non-profit NGO in Putte, a small town in the southern province of Noord Brabant. Heifer Nederland is devoted to international development, using sustainable small holder animal husbandry projects as entry point for community development in Africa and Central Europe. It provides training, livestock, planting material and other resources to assist poor families to become self-reliant. Animals funded by Heifer are in our holistic vision to provide milk, eggs, draught power, organic manure . The projects contribute also to other benefits such as access to saving accounts, capacity building of farmers organisations and improvements of the value chain. For families involved in our programs this results to improved nutrition, education for children, health care, housing, emancipation of weaker groups (women, poor families) and self esteem. Literally a new way of life.

For more information about Heifer visit the website at www.heifer.nl