Donated animals bring wealth to Africans
Beatrice Biira fosters educational partnerships between the US and Africa. The Ugandan is currently studying at the Clinton School of Public Services in Arkansas, and it all began with the gift from Heifer International.
It’s lottery day in this small Ugandan village and the mood is festive. Potential winners aren’t drawn by a jackpot of millions, but the chance to win goats, compliments of Heifer International.
Jo Luck, CEO of Heifer International, has seen these lotteries change lives. “It’s building roads into the community. It’s getting schools in the rural areas. It’s setting up daycare centers, health centers.”
“You know, you just can’t hold them back once they get going,” said Luck.
Case in point: Beatrice Biira. Her family got its first goat when she was a child, and they’ve turned milk money into education. Her journey out of Africa has led all the way to the Clinton School of Public Service in Arkansas.
“Thinking of myself from the village, from the nine-year-old girl who really wanted to go to school,” Biira reflected. “That I am at a master’s level sounds like fairy tale to me.”
Earning an American education was once the stuff of fairy tales for Beatrice Biira but now very much a reality. And it’s not a selfish pursuit. She plans to return to Africa after her studies, finishing what a goat named Luck started.
She says she doesn’t know exactly how she’ll do it, only that she must. She’s starting with kids stifled by lack of opportunity.
“My job is to talk to them and encourage them to think beyond that, to work to their best,” Biira said.
When Biira returned to Africa, much was the same. Because of income generated by these $120 dairy goats, much was new: mattresses, bicycles, new wealth.
“To us, wealth means sending your child to school, having food to eat,” explained Biira. “Although you are not seeing a car or a TV or a carpeted floor in their house, they are wealthy and they are happy.”
This summer, as part of her Masters Degree from the Clinton School, Beatrice has joined Millennium Promise in New York City to complete her International Public Service Project called the “School-2-School Program”.
The goal of this program is to connect primary school students and teachers in Africa with students in schools in the United States. Through innovative technologies like the internet, live video/audio chats, tele-conference calls, etc. the “School-2-School Project” will actively engage students and teachers in a cross-cultural learning and sharing experience to foster a broader understanding of the global community.
Beatrice will oversee these partnerships beginning September 2009, continuing her commitment to her continent.
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