ITDG in partnership with Kids for Kids

Fighting poverty in Sudan ... with goats

ITDGPractical Action is teaming up with British charity Kids for Kids, which loans goats to some of the poorest communities in war ravaged Sudan.

Lord Cope of Berkeley PC, patron of Kids for Kids, launched the new partnership at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, London on Tuesday, 13th January.

Since its creation just under three years ago, Kids for Kids has loaned goats to over 120 families and provided water for 50,000 people through the provision of hand-pumps. The charity - which has pledged an initial £100,000 to the partnership and is seeking a further £200,000 to help more families in the Darfur region of the country - also provides veterinary training and helped fund the training of village midwives with the co-operation of the state’s Ministry of Health.

Lord Cope said: "I am proud to be associated with Kids for Kids which provides long term, self sustainable solutions for tackling poverty. In Darfur there is abject poverty where families barely scrape a living as farmers in desert-like conditions where many cannot afford to own even one goat."

"It is particularly appropriate that we are joining forces with ITDGPractical Action, which, since 1974, has been developing and implementing simple and ingenious technologies in agriculture, water harvesting and manufacturing. Their projects, like ours, are long term and self sustaining and our partnership will help some of the poorest people on earth. The serious conflict in Darfur in recent months has made the need all the greater and made the severe lack of resources all the more terrible in its consequences. This new partnership is an innovative way of addressing some of the problems."

Kids for Kids loans five nanny goats and a billy - as well as a donkey - to families for two years, after which the family is allowed to keep all of the goats reared from the herd. Therefore Kids for Kids makes an extraordinary difference.

Founder of Kids for Kids Patricia Parker MBE, said the goats offered a real boost for families as they could be used for food or currency and provide milk which offered a vitamin rich diet for children.

"I believe that the work of the partnership is extremely visionary and will provide benefits that amount to more than the sum of the two organisations," she explained.

"Kids for Kids has already shown the benefit of this though its initial work with Save the Children UK and state government departments in Darfur. The international community is working to establish peace in Sudan but meanwhile whole generations of children in Darfur are suffering. Even the little help we can bring can transform their lives."

Through the partnership, the organisations will work in the El Fashir, Korma and Tawila regions of North Darfur in Sudan, to expand the goat lending and veterinary training schemes, install further handpumps, establish water irrigation systems, set up kindergartens and train farmers in methods to increase harvests. The partnership will also support a hospital which cares for 163,000 people.

Further information

For further information, please contact Patricia Parker on 01306 887 624 (home), 07957 206440 (mobile) or parker@denebank.demon.co.uk, or
Guy Whitmore, ITDGPractical Action Media Relations, on 01788 634400, or e-mail guy.whitmore@itdg.org.uk

Find out more about ITDGPractical Action's work in Sudan

Kids for Kids website

Patricia Parker and Kids for Kids

When Patricia Parker visited Sudan three years ago she was deeply moved by what she saw - so moved in fact, that she set up a pioneering charity which lends goats to some of the country’s poorest people. Now, nearly three years later, the goat-lending scheme is helping many families in the Darfur region of Sudan and the charity is going from strength to strength.

For someone who claims to have lived a sheltered life in London, Patricia Parker is doing a very good impression of someone leading a adventurous existence jetting between the UK capital and one of the most inhospitable and probably unforgiving places on Earth.

As she says herself, being blonde and fair skinned she is the unlikeliest of people to be found working under the blistering heat of the desert sun in Sudan. But the fact that she regularly braves the punishing elements is testament to her determination and dedication to help those living in the country, where 60 per cent of the population constantly face droughts and hunger.

Spare time is not something Patricia is particularly rich with nowadays, because just under three years ago the artist embarked on a truly huge challenge - although this seems to be something she thrives on!

In March 2001 she established Kids for Kids, a charity which helps some of the poorest people in Sudan escape famine and poverty. With her usual determination and enthusiasm - the same that earned her an MBE for her work with Marie Curie Cancer Care - Patricia set up her innovative charity which uses an innovative programme of goat lending to help people in the North Darfur region of the country.

Her amazing story started three years ago when Patricia spent a week in Sudan visiting her son Alastair, who was working at the British embassy at the time. As she says, it was nothing more than a weeklong visit by a mother visiting her son, but it was to have a dramatic effect on her life.

"I could not sleep at night after seeing the conditions people were living in, it was so moving" explained Patricia.

"Water was in desperately short supply, hunger was very common and the landscape was nothing but baron desert. And with the lack of transport and infrastructure, there was very little most could do to escape the dire situation they faced. I came back determined to do something to help. I really felt that doing nothing would be turning my back on these people, and that was just not an option."

As soon as she returned Patricia set up the charity with its "revolving goat project", which in short means it lends five nanny goats and a billy goat to a family for two years after which the herd is passed on to another family. However all new goats born to the herd can be kept by the family, giving them a valuable commodity which can be used as food or currency and a source of vitamin rich milk - an important part of a balanced diet, especially for children.

"The goats offer a long term and self sustainable way for families to escape poverty," she said. "And it is this philosophy that Kids for Kids is built on."

But it’s not just about goats. Kids for Kids is also working to deliver water to the parched environment of North Durfur.

In a country that received just 4 cm of rain in 2001- just enough to submerge your big toe. By comparison, during the same period the UK had more than a metre, or put another way, about the same as the shallow end of many swimming pools.

So when Patricia was told that a hand operated water pump, which could provide water to several villages at a time could be installed for £2,000, she vowed to help install as many as she could.

To date she has helped provide water to 50,000 people in the region through the installation of pumps, and ensured the long-term sustainability of them by setting up training classes in pump maintenance and repair.

"One poor child I met was walking 14 hours a day to collect water in the sweltering heat," she said.

"That really shocked me, I just had to do something. Women have told me that they used to pray for water all the time but never thought their prayers would be answered. Now they have water they cannot believe it and are absolutely delighted, so it is deeply gratifying for me to be involved with this project."

Despite the success of the charity, Patricia insists there is plenty more to do and explains she wants to help provide a further 80 families with herds of goats and install another 14 water pumps.

And to mark the new year and help build on the success of Kids for Kids, Patricia has joined forces with international development charity ITDGPractical Action - The Intermediate Technology Development Group - which has worked in partnership with communities in Sudan since 1974 to find long-term solutions to poverty.

This is something Patricia is particularly excited about as she believes both charities share the visionary concept of finding self-sustaining answers to poverty, and as a result, will complement and even bolster each other’s work.

An example of this is ITDGPractical Action’s pioneering "donkey plough". The ploughs - which are made out of recycled metal - were developed with farmers as many were planting seeds by hand as they could not afford traditional ploughs. But as the ploughs - and the donkeys which pulled them - were more affordable, the ploughs can be used to increase planting and in turn, harvest yields.

Many families have access to a donkey, which makes the plough a much more accessible tool and has shown to increase harvests by up to 500 per cent.

"With each herd of goats we give to a family we also give a donkey," she explains. "So this means families will be able to use ITDGPractical Action’s plough which is an excellent example of how the two charities can combine their skills to help local people further. Kids for Kids’ donkeys pulling ITDGPractical Action’s ploughs - it couldn’t get any better than that for the people of North Dafur."