Heifer International is a non-profit humanitarian organization dedicated to ending world hunger and saving the earth by providing livestock, trees, training and other resources to help poor families around the globe become self-reliant.

Heifer's strategy is…
To “pass on the gift.” Program participants agree to share their animals’ offspring with others – along with their knowledge, resources, and skills – an expanding network of hope, dignity, and self-reliance is created that reaches around the globe.

Heifer’s History
This simple idea of giving families a source of food rather than short-term relief caught on and has continued for almost 60 years. Today, millions of families in 128 countries have been given the gifts of self-reliance and hope.

Description:
Here’s how Heifer International works

A typical Heifer project consists of three essential components:

Livestock and other material goods

Training and extension work

Organizational development, which includes planning, management, record keeping, passing on the gift, reporting and evaluation.

And it all starts in a community.

First, Heifer helps a community group analyze their situation. They ask: What do we need? What are our resources? What would we like to see happen in five years? Then, they plan specific activities to achieve their goals.



At this point, the Heifer “living loan” becomes reality. Farmers prepare for their animals by participating in training sessions, building sheds, and sometimes planting trees and grasses.

Then the livestock arrives – bringing with it the benefits of milk, wool, draft power, eggs, fertilzer and offspring to pass on to another farmer.

Finally, the group evaluates its progress, and the cycle repeats as the group moves to more and more ambitious goals, each time visioning, deciding, implementing and reflecting.

Every family and community that receives assistance promises to repay their living loan by donating one or more of their animal’s offspring to another family in need. This practice of “Passing on the Gift” ensures project sustainability, develops community and enhances self-esteem by allowing project partners to become donors.

This is Heifer’s sustainable approach to ending hunger and poverty – one family, one animal at a time. It’s not temporary relief. It’s not a handout. It’s securing a future with generations of people who have hope, health and dignity.

History:
Our History

A Four-Footed Attack Against Hunger

A Midwestern farmer named Dan West was ladling out rations of milk to hungry children during the Spanish Civil War when it hit him.

“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 – literally, who would live and who would die. This kind of aid, he knew, would never be enough.

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 York, Pennsylvania, for Puerto Rico, going to families whose malnourished children had never even tasted milk. Learn about the cowboys who brought cows and kids together.

Why heifers? These are young cows that haven’t yet given birth – making them perfect not only for supplying a continued source of milk, but also for supplying a continued source of support. That’s because each family receiving a heifer agrees to “pass on the gift” and donate the female offspring to another family, so that the gift of food is never-ending.

This simple idea of giving families a source of food rather than short-term relief caught on and has continued for almost 60 years. As a result, millions of families in 115 countries are experiencing better health, more income and the joy of helping others.

Contact people:

Scott Andersen, Madison Area Volunteer, (608) 658-5193, (email) David Boothby, Midwest Area Director, (574) 642-3096, (email)

Office fax number: Midwest Regional Office(574)642-4736

Address:

1121 Woodbridge Trail Waunakee, WI 53597 (See a map)

Web Site: http://Heifer.org

Directions:

Take Hwy 113 north out of Madison. Left of Arborateum Drive Left on Woodbridge Trail   Nearest Metro/Subway Stop: No bus service