Many thanks for the kind and generous gifts that you gave to the Send a Cow charity following Alex Kirui’s talk to the evening service on October 25. The final total was £146.35, which was a brilliant effort and there is a letter of thanks from the charity’s headquarters in Bath at the back of the church.
For those of you who missed Alex’s talk, here is a short synopsis of Send-a-Cow, which was set up ten years ago by West Country farmers to help provide a reliable source of milk to struggling families in Uganda.
Uganda has been beset by appalling Civil War with successive military dictatorships under Amin and Obote causing tremendous loss of life and destruction of homes and livestock. On top of this, AIDS was wreaking havoc on families, leaving many children either orphaned or needing adoption.
Send-a-Cow began in 1988 sending out in-calf Jersey and Holstein Friesian heifers (young pregnant female cows) to Ugandan smallholders and farmers to help boost milk production. With the help of the Church of Uganda and the Mothers Union, more than 300 animals were sent out by air to Entebbe airport.
Ugandans who received the cows passed on the calves to other hard-pressed families when the animals were born, and the extra milk obtained from the Jerseys and Holstein Freisian dairy cows helped allow mothers to send their children to school, start up small businesses and kick-start the rural economy.
Other practical agricultural schemes have been set up over the past ten years, such as the village bull scheme, where local Zebu or Ankoli cattle are brought to be serviced by a Holstein bull.
Cross-breds reared still produce up to 15 litres of milk a day rather than the 1-2 litres produced by the native breeds.
Embryo-transfer work has also taken place, though the airlifting out of stock to Africa stopped in 1996 after the worldwide ban on British beef because of the BSE scare.
However, grass-roots projects in Ethiopia and Kenya, where Alex is in charge of the Send a Cow projects involving goats and other smaller stock are continuing apace.
Alex was over to help join the 10th anniversary celebrations at Wembley Conference Centre, where the All Souls Orchestra were joined by Christian soloist Garth Hewitt and Ugandan Gospel Singer Fiona Mukasa to help praise God for his work in Africa.
They can be contacted on their e-mail
sacuk@sednacow-stockaid.org.uk
Or more information can be obtained on their website
www.sendacow-stockaid.org.uk
Their address is Unit 4, Priston Mill, Priston, Bath, BA2 9EQ
Telephone number 01225 447041
Fax number 01225 317627
