With Father’s Day just around the corner in Australia, Compassion Australia’s KATY CAUSEY and ELISSA WEBSTER put forward the case for making this year’s present one that lasts…
It’s that time of year again – your offspring are gearing up to show how much they care by choosing the perfect pair of socks, and you’re gearing up to show them how much you appreciate the sentiment with the appropriate level of enthusiasm. After all, no doubt you really are grateful to avoid having to shop for socks. But what if the thought really could be made to count this Father’s Day?
That’s where the goat comes in. Like my socks don’t smell enough, I hear you say, so I need a goat? No thanks! But with all of us dealing with more than enough stuff in our lives, and an estimated $676.5 million spent on Aussie dads in 2013 alone, it may be time to rethink your position.
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NEW GOATS – AND A NEW LIFE: Peter Munyao with his goats in Kenya. PICTURE: Silas Irungu/Compassion “That goat, while every bit as real and pungent as you imagine, will not end up in your backyard, but in that of a family living in poverty in the developing world.” |
Goats, you see, are one of a smorgasbord of options on offer this Father’s Day through gift catalogues like Compassion Australia’s Gifts of Compassion. That goat, while every bit as real and pungent as you imagine, will not end up in your backyard, but in that of a family living in poverty in the developing world. Aussie dads given the gift of the goat receive an equally real but much less odorous card, and the knowledge that it can help change the future for a family on the other side of the world. That’s more than you can say about the socks.
Goats matter
It’s a nice idea, but can goats really make that much difference? Peter Munyao says they saved his life.
Peter lives in Ngaamba, Kenya, where the average family income is about $US20 a month. He earns about three dollars a week working as a casual labourer, and the struggle to provide for his wife and three children has been relentless. But Peter’s real struggle is against despair at the hopelessness of their situation, and he has often considered suicide as an escape.
Peter owned a goat, but she had never produced much milk and he never thought she would be the answer to his problems. But then the Compassion child development centre run through their local church that his daughter belonged to bought five Toggenburg goats, funded by the Critical Interventions program supported by Gifts of Compassion. Peter didn’t think much of it – until the first kid bred from a local goat and one of the Toggenburgs sold for four times the regular price, and the crossbreeds started producing up to two litres of milk in one day.
So Peter joined the Compassion centre’s breeding program and his little she-goat has produced some crossbreeds of his own. He has already doubled his profit.
“I was sitting on so much potential,” he says. “Now I can utilise that potential and harness food security. It’s very good for my family. Now we have more nutritious food and the children are happy.”
And that’s not all. Peter plans to build his breeding business and train others to do it too. “In the next two or three years, I will have my own goat business. I will own land and a place to keep the goats. I can start a goat milking society. The goats give me confidence.”
So can goats really change lives? For Peter, and his family, the answer is a resounding yes.
“The church gave me hope,” Peter says. “I decided not to kill myself. Now I’m doing well. When you have hope that everything is alright, it is alright.”
Dads matter too
OK, so goats can make a difference in the developing world – but they can make a difference in Australia too.
Dads make up about 20 per cent of Australia’s population – there are some 4.6 million nationwide and almost half of those have kids under 18. Research suggests Aussie dads spend an average of four hours a day caring for their children, at the same time as working an average of 42 hours a week. And study after study shows that a father’s love is just as critical to a person’s development, and sometimes even more critical, as their mother’s. The bottom line is, dads are an important influence on kids and the way they think.
Teaching our kids to care about the world around them and to walk beside those who need help is a big responsibility for fathers and there are lots of ways to do it. But maybe a goat on your Father’s Day wish list is one worth adding.
You can find out more about Gifts of Compassion and how they are changing lives at compassion.com.au/giftsofcompassion
Katy Causey is a writer for Compassion International and Elissa Webster is a freelance writer for Compassion Australia.
