This Christmas, we are determined to reach 650,000 lives by providing life-changing gifts like clean water, goats, and chickens to families in need. How many have we helped so far?
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We set the goal of helping 650,000 this Christmas- you rose to the challenge and helped 650,850 people!
Thank you for being a part of changing lives- your gifts brought things like clean water, nutritious food, and economic support to people in need.
We introduced the True Spirit of Christmas tour to help you understand how your gifts are making a difference in peoples lives. Will you take a few minutes to let us know how we are doing? Your feedback will help us bring you an even better True Spirit of Christmas tour next year.
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Patrick,
Dear all.
The animals feeds on localy available pastures (grass),the cconstruction for housing is done using locally available materials and veterinary services are provided by government officers from the the line ministries who are our partners in implimentation.
Thanks all,
Hi Deb,
I agree that having the concern for care for the animals and continued training for the people is necessary! The awesome thing about World Vision is they provide this as well:) I found the website WVTV.org (spirit of Christmas) to be helpful in seeing how these items come with more than just an animal, rather they are given training and tools to maintain sustainable change as well!
Blessings on your new year!
Liz
To those concerned about the giving of live animals:
Rest assured that World Vision provides all that is necessary for the animal’s care. This may be in the form of direct assistance such as having the animal vaccinated before presenting to the families, or it may be empowerment where the families are taught the means to sustainable care for the animal.
We have personally seen this take place! The first was when we visited with our two WV children in El Salvador. WV showed us a farmer that was using his property as informal, hands on, and very effective agricultural school. He was given a few chickens and started out slowly, and grew the flock to be over 250 chickens, well fed, and health! The second was by way of letters from one of our children in El Salvador. Javier was the recipient of two calves. About a year later, he wrote that the animals flourished and had each given birth to their own calf. We have photos of the chicken farmer and calves as warm memories!
We continue to use the WV Gift Catalog to provide live animals and other gifts such as education that have long term effects, breaking the chains of poverty.
Blessed by God to be a blessing to others!
Hey Deb,
That is a great question. When World Vision is working in communities, we want to set families up for success in the future, and not just create temporary solutions.
When we gift animals to families, we make sure that they are in a situation where they are capable of caring for the animal, and we train them how to do so.
If a family is facing floods, droughts, or crippling poverty, we would work to provide them with emergency food aid, shelter, and other essentials to help them through that period of crisis.
The families you see in these videos are a part of our community development programs. World Vision is working with them to provide clean water, education, healthcare, economic development, and sustainable food sources. So, providing families with animals is just one part of the larger picture.
Thanks for asking!
- Lindsey, WV Blog Manager