Archive for the ‘Africa’ Category

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Staff Member Tours Heifer Tanzania Projects

Wednesday, July 28th, 2010

Our own Tonya Toney is on a study tour in Tanzania visiting Heifer International projects that are helping families become self sufficient through education, training and livestock. She will be posting her thoughts and photos from the field during the coming week.

“What an amazing first day of project visits, I’m still processing all that I saw, heard and felt. The people have such a beautiful spirit.” – Tonya Toney

In this photo, Tonya is in the Nambala village with four siblings who are now able to attend primary school thanks to their parents involvement with Heifer’s life-changing work.

Tonya In Nambala

Farmer Zadock and his wife in Nambala Village

In the Nambala village, Zadock, a farmer, and his wife received Heifer goats and now have a variety of livestock, more fish ponds and practice organic farming. Zadock now trains other farmers in surrounding villages. They have now been able to send their four children to school (they are in the above photo with Tonya).

Mama Ana churning butter

Mama Ana demonstrates butter churning. The Agape women’s project, in the hills of Mt. Meru, has shown women how to process milk to make all types of cheese and butter that they can use to improve nutrition and sell in their communities. The profits from this successful project has helped build primary and secondary schools and a health clinic for the community.

Posted in Africa, Education, General, Tanzania | Comments Off

Heifer Cameroon Trains Leaders For A Brighter Future

Friday, March 20th, 2009
Photobucket
Cyprian’s mother (left) and these orphans have both benefited from the dairy project in Vekovi.

An elderly woman in a brilliant pink blouse handed me a photo of herself that was taken when she was recovering in a hospital bed. This gift was her way of thanking Heifer for her life-saving operation. Her son, Cyprian Lukong, had struggled for years to make a living wage to care of his family, just as his mother had battled dehabilitating stomach problems time and time again.
Cyprian’s involvement with Heifer Cameroon’s dairy initiative proved to be a turning point, not only in his life, but that of his mother, his wife, his children, those that now work for him on his farm, and the many orphans that he provides milk for and helps counsel.

In the village of Vekovi, Cyprian was just one of many who had taken the livestock training, various agricultural instruction, and Heifer’s Cornerstones of sharing and caring and vigorously applied it to their lives to make a better future.

To most Americans these people would have nothing, but they are doing better than they ever imagined. Their homes are made of mud bricks with tin roofs, dirt floors and no indoor plumbing or appliances. But through their involvement with Heifer they are now able to provide three healthy meals a day for their family, pay for the children’s school fees, books and transportation, and even reach out to help AIDS/HIV orphans and ailing members of their communities.

(more…)

Posted in Africa, Cameroon | Comments Off

Heifer Mozambique: Confirmation Of The Mission At Hand

Monday, February 9th, 2009

Group

It was an opportunity to travel outside of the country for the first time, and, more importantly, experience first hand the life-changing work of an organization dedicated to ending hunger and poverty.

Pat Brower, human resources manager for Heifer Foundation, traveled to the east African nation of Mozambique in October of 2008 for a study tour through the projects of Heifer International, an organization with a mission of ending hunger and poverty through education and livestock. “It reinforced how I feel about Heifer, how I feel about the Foundation, and what we are doing,” she said. “Seeing it first hand I can tell people: I’ve seen it, I know it’s working and I know it’s right.”

One of the most exciting and surprising aspects of the trip, Pat said, was the variety and diversity of the projects that they visited during the two-week journey. “We got a real overview of the Heifer projects and the model, what it takes to get one started, and how long and drawn out it can be,” she said.

Pat said there was considerable poverty in the cities, but once they traveled into the countryside the poverty became even more prevalent. However, the first project they visited, which was one of the very first projects in Mozambique, demonstrated what Heifer’s mission could mean to the lives of a group that worked hard for a few years in the project programs. “All the people in that village had matching polo shirts and women had matching kampulanas,” she said, which was very different from the dress of the projects that followed.

(more…)

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Heifer Mozambique: A Personal Story Of Connecting With The Past And Present, While Working For A Brighter Future

Friday, January 23rd, 2009

Dorothy&Kids

It was the barren dirt yards dotted with small patches of flowers that brought Dorothy Graham back to the Delta of her youth. Mozambique is more than 9,000 miles away from her childhood home in Marvell, Arkansas, yet the living conditions brought back a flood of memories and established for her an instant connection with the people and the land.

“They use hoes to cut their grass, so their yards are nothing but dirt because they cut all the grass out plus the children playing in it,” she said. “And I can remember growing up, that’s the way my mother did our yard.” Dorothy Graham, the planned charitable giving officer for the nonprofit organization Heifer Foundation, had traveled to Mozambique in October of 2008 to take part in a study tour of the projects of Heifer International, an organization dedicated to ending hunger and poverty through education and livestock.

Boy with goat

Finding home an ocean away

“I was thinking about my childhood a lot when I was traveling in Africa because I’m from the Delta,” she said. “Anyone familiar with the Delta knows that it is poor. Growing up, I realized I was poor, but it wasn’t until after I graduated and moved to Little Rock that I realized how poor I actually was.”

Dorothy was quick to point out that while she was considered poor growing up, it was still nothing like the challenges and conditions faced by many of the people she visited on her journey. “Poverty is different here in the United States than it is in the third world countries,” she said. “Even with the poorest people here, it’s just not the same. They have nothing. We at least have the government to assist us. They don’t have that because their governments are so poor.”

(more…)

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A Better Tomorrow

Monday, March 10th, 2008

Days 6-8

January 6

We traveled an hour and a half to the hilltop village of Bafou. It is a much more pleasant climate in the Western Highland province than in the more southern provinces of Cameroon.

We arrived first at Martha Nandog’s home where I sat on a bench outside and spoke with her through an interpreter named Ali. She told me that she was a nurse working in the city and living with her husband, who was the breadwinner of the family.

“We came back to the village and we were empty handed because he was a diabetic,” Martha said. “Here, to manage a diabetic patient you need a lot of money. He died in 1995, leaving no food, no money and the children dropped out of school.”

Martha found herself living a “life of borrowing,” by having to constantly ask neighbors and family for food and money. During this time, one of her children was in the hospital for two years and went through eight operations. To pay for the operations she had to lease out the land they owned.

“When I came back from the hospital, I can only thank god that Heifer came to our community,” she said. “I was one of the first people to be assisted here.”
(more…)

Posted in Africa, Cameroon | Comments Off

Leaders of Vekovi

Friday, March 7th, 2008

Day 5

February 5

Excerpt from an e-mail I sent to my family, friends and co-workers late that night:

“Where to start? This has been a really unforgettable experience so far. Overwhelming some days. I have seen SO much of Cameroon in only four whole days. I travel anywhere from 3 to 6 hours every day. All of the projects/villages we visit treat me like a dignitary. Today we traveled through some breathtaking hill country on the worst possible dirt roads to the town of Veloki. I was given two large sacks of carrots, 3 two-liter bottles of freshly made yogurt, a sack of potatoes (Irish is what they call ‘em), and a sack of Kola Nuts, which are supposed to give me good life, and an old woman, whose son had dramtically changed his life and was able to pay for her dire operations through money made with his Heifer dairy cattle, gave me a photo of her in the hospital after her surgery. I gave all the goods to the Heifer Cameroon staff to split up. Every group we visit has a big spread of huckleberry, rice, carrrots, chicken, plantains, roasted nuts (I ate ‘em), etc, but I haven’t really ate too much until today because Hilda thinks it will upset my stomach (she’s kind of motherly). I’m proud to say I haven’t had any stomach problems – yet.

Today, I met with Philip’s family and Cyprian’s family. These two men have learned so much from Heifer and applied it to their lives. They spoke of gender equity, HIV education, and how they feel obligated to pass on their gift. Philip and Cyprian now treat their wives as equals and are respected in their community for the knowledge they happily share and how they conduct themselves with their families. To us these people would have nothing, but for them they are doing better than they ever imagined. Cyprian and his wife take in and feed orphans and go around to other orphanages to teach. With healthy cattle and farming, Cyprian employs other men in his village who had once beat their wives, drank and never worked, but who now have learned to treat their wives as equals and have taken the money they have earned and bought their own livestock. They are so proud. This is not limited to this village, I saw it in Manjo yesterday and Buea on Saturday. These people speak of what Heifer has done for themselves, their families and their villages in such a way it would melt the coldest cynics’ heart.”

The small, close-knit mountain village of Vekovi is located in the Northwest Province of Cameroon, far away from the bustling cities. It was here that I met Cyprian Lukong and Philip Sahwai, the first two members of the Dzekwa Multi Purpose Farmer’s Society to receive livestock. In 1997, they both received a pregnant purebred Holstein dairy cow.

Before immersing themselves in dairy farming, Cyprian had been a contract teacher on a minimal salary and Philip had been involved in the small-scale buying, fattening and selling of local beef cattle. Cyprian had a wife and children and Philip was an orphan who had to take care of his six younger siblings. Each man barely made enough money to feed themselves, much less their respective families.
(more…)

Posted in Africa, Cameroon | Comments Off

Road To Bamenda

Thursday, March 6th, 2008

Day 4

February 4

In the village of Namba, near the town of Manjo, is where we visit the Association des Jeunes de Namba, or AJEN Group. Namba is in a French-speaking province, so an interpreter, Rochelle, has come along with Humphrey, Hilda and I. This stop is a little less than half way to Bamenda, where Heifer Cameroon’s headquarters is located. After we visit the group, Hilda and Rochelle will return to the Douala offices where they are hosting the Heifer Senegal group this week. Humphrey and I will continue on to the Western Highlands, where I’ll spend the next couple of days visiting projects. I am told the people from the Western Highlands are the most industrious and hard working in all of Cameroon.

The first person I visit in Namba is Walter Atoh, treasurer of the group. He has a simple wooden frame house with tin roof and dirt floors. Inside the main room of the house is a long bench, a couple of chairs, and at the back of the room is his new motorcycle and his beat-up old motorcycle.

I talk first with Emmanuel Youyep Yonko, president of the group, who stops in while we are sitting down to talk to Walter. Emmanuel tells me before getting involved with Heifer, the members of the group were doing the most rudimentary farming with only a few pigs.

Heifer’s training on the very basics of how to properly feed and care for the pigs has had a transformational effect on the pig farmer’s who have adopted the practices. The farmers in Namba used to feed the pigs only cassava yams and some grass instead of the mixture of feed they now process on their own. The group used its profits, along with a government grant, to purchase a grinding mill, which is utilized to create a surplus of feed for group members at all times and also sell to the local community for affordable prices.

From Heifer, the group members also learned to use elevated pigsties, which are better for maintaining the health of the pigs and also lessens the impact on the quality of the community’s environment.

“Before Heifer came, each of us had only one or two pigs. Now days some have up 30 pigs, 40 pigs,” Emmanuel said. “The pigs of six months old today are bigger than the pigs of two years old then. The difference is real and it’s tangible.”
(more…)

Posted in Africa, Cameroon | Comments Off

The Day Off

Wednesday, March 5th, 2008

Here is what I look like in front of the Heifer Cameroon offices in Douala.

Day 3

February 3

I have now been here a little more than 50 hours and I am almost at a loss for words when trying to describe my experience so far. Today was a wonderful day spent exploring the botanical gardens near the ocean, swimming in the ocean, and relaxing on a rust-colored beach. Humphrey grew up in Limbe and said he after school he and his friends would go to the botanical garden and eat the fruit. The best part of the gardens was a natural amphitheater that is somehow hidden up a path in the middle of the gardens. When we walked up to it, two men we’re sitting in a wooden structure at the far end singing hymns.

Later, on the way back from the beach, we stop and buy some freshly cut sugar cane from the side of the road. Unpeeled, its tough to eat, at least for me. Hilda told me how little children will slip into someone’s patch of sugar cane and tie a string around several stalks of sugar cane. Then they’ll sneak back out and take off running while pulling hard on the string, bringing fresh sugar cane with it. That little story sticks with me all day.

The Limbe river borders one side of the botanical garden.

The natural ampitheater was used for wrestling and plays, and later for religious ceremonies

I wanted to go in the church and take a whole card of photos,
but instead I settled for just one outside the door.

(Later that day)

I just finished a late dinner of grilled fish and chips at the Royal Palace Hotel’s restaurant. After we arrived back in Douala, I got high hopes that the Super Bowl will be broadcast on one of the 30 or so channels that show sports (soccer). I took an early evening nap so I’ll be good to go if the post-midnight broadcast happens.

(Writer’s note: Just after midnight I find a French telecast of the game that’s amusing and impassioned.)
Patriots just went for it on 4th and 13 just outside the red zone in the third quarter, leading 7-3. Could be the turning point. It’s almost 3 a.m. here in Cameroon and I am having a one-man Super Bowl party.
Tom Brady just got waylaid in the end zone and the French announcer exclaimed: “Ooohhh la la la la la!”
Priceless.

Tomorrow we travel six hours to the Western Highlands province to Heifer Cameroon’s headquarters in Bamenda. On the way we will stop in Manjo to visit a group.

–Jeremy Glover

Posted in Africa, Cameroon | Comments Off

Lives of Others

Tuesday, March 4th, 2008

Cameroon: Days 1-2

January 31 or February 1

Currently, I am just off the eastern seaboard, somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean, unsure of the exact date and time after a brief nap. I’m guessing the date is the still the former, as the eight-hour flight departed just a few hours ago.

So this is it: A trip into the unknown. This is the very thing that so piqued my interest last spring when I applied for this job. I am to spend the next seven days in Cameroon with my tape recorder, digital camera, video camera, journal and notebook, where I’ll be collecting stories, thoughts and impressions for my employer, Heifer Foundation.I couldn’t be more pleased. But what awaits? That’s always the best story of all.

Exposure to a people and a way of life that is completely removed from all I’ve known. I’ve been told I won’t come back the same, and I believe it. I feel a little like I did as an impressionable 20-year-old spending the summer studying in Europe. Life is certainly for the living.

After 22 hours of traveling, I arrived in a foggy state of mind. Upon landing, I was immediately struck by how Douala International Airport looked like a bombed-out war relic that has since been reclaimed and was barely functioning. It had a stained, dingy appearance, with no air conditioning on the inside and a long stretch of pointless walkways leading to a police and customs, which was the calm before the madness, at least in my jet-lagged state. Dripping with sweat, I staggered about reading unfamiliar names off of signs people were holding. The baggage claim was a barrage of people with signs and aggressive drivers who would almost force you to ride with them to the city. I fended off one before forcing my way outside to find the friendliest people I had seen thus far waiting for me behind a barricade, which may or may not have been put up to keep back the raucous parade of youth who were banging drums and bells and waving signs that said “Welcome Prince!” – a Cameroonian pop star who was on the same plane as me. The carnival atmosphere was a surreal first impression to say the least. But my welcoming party of Dr. Humphrey Taboh, assistant director of Heifer Cameroon; Hilda Mbungai, zonal manager for the Humid Rainforest Program Zone; and Dominic, our driver, was warm and pleasant and they had a large bottle of cold water for me.

(more…)

Posted in Africa, Cameroon | Comments Off

Strife In Cameroon

Monday, March 3rd, 2008

Today was supposed to be the start of my daily journal from Cameroon (not in real time as we initially planned, as the amount of time I spent in the field made that impossible). Over this past weekend, I received an e-mail message that stated: “There was a serious strike in Cameroon, which grounded all businesses and a lot of destruction (human and material) and our offices were temporarily closed down.”

As with many African nations, democracy and democratic reforms are tenuous at best in Cameroon. Many of the Cameroonians I spoke with while I was there felt the current government took illegal measures to maintain its hold on power.
(more…)

Posted in Africa, Cameroon | Comments Off

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