Out of Poverty With a Cow

from All Africa

The Monitor (Kampala)

INTERVIEW

Send a Cow Uganda, a non-profit NGO, will celebrate its 20th anniversary this September in helping communities overcome poverty and malnutrition through distribution of livestock to needy families. Florence Namasinga talked to the organisation's Executive Director, Mr Samuel Kawumi. Excerpts.

Are you simply engaged in giving out cows as your name suggests?

Send a Cow emerged as a response to a need to help poor communities out of poverty and malnutrition. It started in 1988 as an idea by Archbishop Mpalanyi Nkoyoyo who requested UK farmers to donate livestock to Uganda.

It has grown to cover about 36 districts spread countrywide. We now give out more than cows. Our packages range from cows to goats, poultry and organic farming. We mostly target women and children who live on their own and groups of people with disabilities.

How do you basically operate?

We have evolved from just giving out livestock for consumption to empowering rural communities to overcome poverty and malnutrition.

Because the organisation's focus was on fighting poverty, we had to shift to a wider perspective. We now have a three-dimension approach, focusing livestock farming, organic farming and social development.

On top of the livestock we empower people with information for better production. We teach people the commercial aspect to their farming so that they can produce for subsistence and then sell the remaining produce. [In this case] a cow is a catalyst to an end which is dealing with poverty and malnutrition

In 20 years of existence, what is your major achievement?

Our achievements are many. A fact that someone can stand out there and testify that his or her life has improved because of Send a Cow is no mean achievement. We have improved livelihoods of people in more than 7,000 households in Uganda.

The stories are countless. People now can take their children to school and have diverse sources of income. Some people especially in northern and eastern Uganda can now invest in many other income generating activities.

Improving food security and nutrition status is critical since 38 per cent of our country is still under poverty.

Farmers have always had a problem of finding market for their produce. What are you doing in this regard?

Our approach does not focus much on directly finding direct markets but we play a role of linking farmers to organisations like Land O Lakes that can market their produce. Organic farmers are linked to agencies like Nogamu, an organisation that supplies organic products from East Africa.

How do you ensure that the people use what you give them for that purpose?

We do a follow up in our project area and they are all success stories. First of all the livestock is given out on a loan basis. It is not for permanent keeps. So people make sure that they work hard to gain from whatever they receive from us. The moment a person gets benefits, he loans the cow or goat to another member of the group.

Ugandan products face stiff competition on the global market for lack of value added. Is this part of your concern?

Our focus has in the past been on enabling these farmers first of all produce. But we also teach them certain aspects of value additions like food preservation and ways they can improve what they have gained.

We now want to develop more linkages for farmers for example we want them to be able to open more land and grow more crops.