Farm Africa has teamed up with international award winning photographer Chris de Bode and photographic agency Panos Pictures to bring you #GoatPower, a free outdoor exhibition at More London Riverside, on London’s South Bank.
Running from 2 to 29 October, the exhibition transports viewers to the drylands of South Omo, Ethiopia and Karamoja, Uganda – two of the poorest areas in eastern Africa, to give an intimate look at how goats are transforming the lives of pastoralist women.
The harsh and unpredictable climate of these regions can make it almost impossible to grow crops and keep livestock healthy. Families go hungry, children often eating just once a day. Despite working hard, women do not have their own property and live off what their husbands are willing to provide, having to ask permission to buy the smallest of purchases or send their children to school.
Through Farm Africa’s Livestock for Livelihoods project, funded by UK aid from the UK government and Jersey Overseas Aid, the international charity is supporting women to set up goat-rearing enterprises that empower them to earn their own money and improve their families’ diets.
Most families in these regions eat a limited diet of cereal grains and wild leaves. Farm Africa has been working with women to cross-breed local goats with high-yielding dairy goats to ensure they have access to protein and nutrient rich goat meat and milk to sell for profit or consume themselves. This is combined with training on how to improve dietary choices for their families and how to build kitchen gardens to grow vegetables fertilised with goat manure.
Anna, one of the women featured in the exhibition, has uncovered the benefits of goat herding. Before joining the project in Karamoja, Uganda, feeding her children was a struggle.
“When it is rainy or windy, the crops get destroyed and we have nothing to give the children.”
This changed when Farm Africa started supporting her village.
“I have seen the difference that having goats has made. When we have the goats’ milk, the children will be able to grow big, strong and healthy… we can sell one of the goats’ kids, and milk the goats and sell the milk, and this means we are able to send children to school”.
Discover the power of goats for yourself and learn about the women who are benefitting from Farm Africa’s work. www.farmafrica.org/GoatPower.
