Author: Fred Crowe

Six months ago I wrote that a mother who had just joined a mother’s self-help group announced that she needed to sell one of her twins as she could not afford to feed them and her other two children. Through our help and support we managed to convince her not to do so.

Today I met her with the twins and everybody is very happy.

We went to school in a slum area in the local city. During a visit the children were eating their lunch. I saw one child of about five walking from the school with her dinner plate partly eaten. She was evidently bringing the food home for her mother.

We visited a small village this evening with a local mayor. He had arranged for solar based electricity lighting in this small village where they’re often without electricity for three or four hours in the evening. This good man also supports the education of 60 children. We passed by one home where one teenager said she could not do her homework as her bottle of ink had run dry. The cost is about €.15.

We take for granted being able to keep our children, having enough food and having electricity and biros. Many of our client families don’t have this luxury.

Thank you to our sponsors because without you I would not be here and experiencing some of the good stories and the way we are able to change peoples lives forever.

For those of you who don’t know, in December 2013 we leased a 10 acre farm. Well it was just 10 acres of bare ground which we have now turned into a farm.

We built an accommodation unit for the people who work there. We have just completed a cow shed for 30 cows and calves.

We built a number of chicken units to accommodate the organic free range chickens we are producing.

We have installed three solar panels to ensure constant temperature for the chicks and electricity to pump water for irrigation.

Our organic free range chickens will have a much higher value and of course the chickens will have had a much better life as they are free to run around in a large enclosure. Today I believe we have 3000 chicks.

We also have 300 ducks, a fish pond a rice paddy, peanut fields and we are growing feed for the cows.

We have a few goats and our next plan is for sheep.

Using our micro finance income generation program we are going to roll out small chicken producing units for our mothers.

We have two new trustees in Chennai who are setting up a website to market our free range organic chickens.

Our plan is well underway to make almost enough profit to cover the costs of local salaries and overheads. We are also going to start training some of our mothers in better ways of looking after their cows.

It’s amazing how much you can do with 10 acres of land. A number of our local people are working very hard.

Most of my photos show happy children but this does not show the full picture. Included in recent photos is a boy who saw his father setting fire to his mother and killing her. Alcoholism may be the reason or family pride. The boy (not featured here) is now adopted by his mother’s sister thank God. He is included in our sponsorship programme. The money which we receive from our sponsors every month make a huge difference to lives such as this child. Please keep it coming sponsors.

Today we are meeting 30 children or should I say adults who graduated this year.