Goat Rearing
Background
For many of the families that the Western Organization for People Living with HIV/AIDS (WOPLAH) serves, food insecurity, lack of consistent income, and persistent health issues are the most serious threats to families’ health and well-being. These issues often inhibit parents’ ability to feed their children and themselves, send their children to school, adhere to their antiretroviral (ARV) drug treatment (if HIV-positive), and maintain good hygiene practices. In 2013, WOPLAH implemented the goat rearing project with the hope that goats would serve as a source of food and nutrition, income, and fertilizer for personal kitchen gardens. WOPLAH has already initiated goat rearing projects in 50 households. In 2020, the goat rearing program had 186 beneficiaries.
Background
Objectives
The objectives of the goat rearing project are to support beneficiaries and their families by providing a source of income generation through the sale of goat milk and offspring, increasing kitchen garden crop yield by creating a consistent, cheap source of fertilizer, and increasing nutrition uptake through goat milk consumption.
Objectives
The Future
WOPLAH plans to expand the goat rearing project to each WOPLAH sponsored support group, for a total of 64 impacted households. When donating a goat, WOPLAH will continue to provide at least one member of each group with a four-day training program and initial vaccinations. WOPLAH also plans to implement a new stipulation that requires each beneficiary to build the structure before receiving the goats in order to ensure protection from weather and thieves. Through the goat rearing project, WOPLAH hopes to increase nutritional support and help boost the immune systems of individuals living with HIV or AIDS. To make the Goat Rearing project more sustainable, WOPLAH hopes to purchase young goats back from the first beneficiaries who received goats when the program started. As more beneficiaries receive goats, WOPLAH can continue to buy the goat offspring and include more beneficiaries in the project.
The Future
