A gift for life: a sheep for a family in Eritrea

Dear donors,

The arrival of covid-19 has only worsened the dramatic reality of a country where 80% of the population lives in rural villages, less than 60% have access to drinking water and only 16% have toilets.

This invisible enemy has therefore put at greater risk those families, especially single mothers and children, who live in isolated rural areas, in total poverty and in the wake of the recent confiscation by the government of the few dispensaries and small clinics that represented the only opportunity to receive medical care and care.

As throughout the world, the limitation of the pandemic has resulted in the restrictive measures that the Eritrean government has imposed with rigidity throughout the country with the total cessation of activities, stopping all public transport, closing schools and literally suspending anything, including the publication of the state newspaper (the only one in the country), which was interrupted for five months.

The arrival of the virus has inevitably questioned the interventions and assistance that our contact persons
had reorganized and resumed with such determination:

our local contacts have come across all these new difficulties that have changed part of the intervention

After the first months of total closure, although the government had only partially relaxed the restrictions, from the summer the nuns began to distribute basic necessities and secretly visiting families to give them the necessary contribution to the purchase of sheep.

The sheep donated represent for many the only opportunity to improve their living conditions and to be able to raise their children in a dignified way.

Sheep, in fact, provide daily milk for children, provide fertilizer for the cultivation of dry land and allow you to start a small family farm, thus obtaining an economic gain from the sale of the first lambs.

In the last three months thanks to you we were able to collect about £ 2,255 USD and then donate about 20 sheep per family!

We can only thank you with all our heart because even in this difficult year you were at our side, giving us the opportunity to continue to support the help that the sisters bring to hundreds of children in difficulty.

Dear friends,

The situation in Eritrea is not as serious as in other countries severely affected by COVID-19. There are no deaths, but the number of cases is increasing. However, the population is suffering from severe economic losses, workers are, in fact, stopped for a long time. Slowly, high school students have managed to complete the academic year 2019-2020. However, the schools are not yet open, and it is not even known when they will open, as an adequate level of safety cannot yet be guaranteed.

Our project "A gift for life: a sheep for a family in Eritrea" does not stop despite all these difficulties. Our sisters are trying to organize themselves both to continue the distance support operations and to donate a valuable contribution to many families; so that,  they can buy sheep on their own. 

The movements around the country are still limited and the sisters are not always able to visit the families who had received the sheep as a gift; however, all our children are still doing well and the farms that have been started continue well and ensure milk and a certain economic income.