Eggs to feed hungry Grandmothers in Darfur

Chickens in Darfur, where the elderly are desperately in need

In 2014 we launched our appeal for chickens for grandparents.  Kids for Kids was created to help children, but no child can survive without a loving family.  In Darfur it is essential to have an extended family because of the huge difficulties of surviving in an area where there is no infrastructure.  Without roads where the only transport is a donkey, without water within reach so that a whole day may be spent in collecting 2 jerry cans, and where markets can take days to reach.  No one can survive unless the family unit is large enough.  

Last year we determined to help the elderly.  How could we leave grandparents to starve?  Many are incapable of caring for animals or tilling their fields.  How could we help in a way that was suitable and possible in Darfur?  Chickens are easy to look after and do not need a lot of water, so we decided to test this idea.  Our pilot project was for just 70 families in 3 villages.  We provided chickens bought locally so they were tough enough to survive the overwhelming heat and sandy poor conditions, resisting advice to buy little chicks from Khartoum.  The journey from Khartoum is hundreds of miles.  (Lorries do arrive in El Fasher with loads of chicks but two thirds do not survive the journey, so we were determined not to provide chickens in this way.)  

The success of our chickens pilot project has meant that this year laying chickens and a rooster are one of our main activities alongside our goat loans for children and farm tools for their parents.  The wonderful smiles of the old people we know who now have chickens scratching away outside their door is unforgettable.

 Can you help us to help more families please?  

$21 / £14 provides 3 laying hens and a rooster for a grandparent 

$62 / £38 provides a little goat for milk to sustain the children and grandchildren

$372 / £228 provides 6 goats for a family

$600 / £370 funds a Paravet - there is no other animal care

$42 / £25 provides training for children to help look after the animals 

Thank you for your support.  

Links:

• Kids for Kids website for more information
• Join the conversation on Facebook

Chickens for Eggs to help Grandmothers in Darfur – latest news

Life is unimaginably hard for grandparents in Darfur.  Often they have lost their children, and many have their orphaned grandchildren to look after too.  Life is tough in a community where everyone eats what they grow and the harvests have been poor.  If there is no extended family to help, older people struggle to forage for food, many become weak with hunger and will starve if their neighbours cannot help them.   Mukheit (acorn like seeds in the picture above) is toxic unless it is soaked and strained for several days.   After that it is ground and made into a sort of gruel.   Mukheit grows on arid shrubs across the sahil.  People have to forage for it and it can take days to collect sufficient for a family - this is not easy for anyone.  For old people it can be the only source of food - but in Darfur violence is an added real risk with many people attacked when they are walking for water, firewood and wild food.

Kids for Kids’s new Chickens Project is a lifeline!  As you may know, we piloted the idea of providing chickens to grandparents last year, and the feedback was amazing.  With your help we ran an Easter Campaign and were able to help families in our first Pilot Project.   We wanted to be sure that providing three healthy chickens and a rooster would really help frail and elderly people.   Many live on their own and are particularly vulnerable.  It is even worse when they are the sole support of orphaned grandchildren.   The difference it made to have eggs to eat, from chickens that are easy to look after, was incredible. 

Your help literally transforms lives!  As one Grandmother put it: “Thank you for saving my family.  I have 2 grandchildren who I have been struggling to look after.  My daughter died from measles, and I am all alone looking after them.  I was afraid I would too would die and what would become of my grandchildren?  Now we have eggs to eat we have hope and I am getting stronger again.”

More to do:  Kids for Kids has adopted 70 villages and helped over 350,000 people so far.  This year we are adopting 8 more villages and we would love to provide chickens there too.  Following the success of our Easter Pilot Project we know that giving chickens really helps.

Please will you help support a grandparent to feed herself and her family?   No one else remembers frail and fragile elderly people in the villages of North Darfur.  This is why Kids for Kids needs your help.    People say they have given up hope in the international community, but not in Kids for Kids.   Thank you for making this possible.  

$21 buys 3 laying hens and a rooster

$45 Provides training for local people to care for the animals in the village 

$600 trains a Paravet for the whole community

Thank you for your support!  

Links:

• Kids for Kids website for further information
• Join the conversation on Facebook