Gift cow news from Uganda!

Birungi, bringer of all good things

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By Jouni K. Kemppainen
     
      At Christmas just over a year ago, I got a dairy cow as a present. A friend of mine bought it for me from the online gift catalogue of World Vision, an international relief and development organisation that also operates in Finland.
      Last March, I was present in Uganda when my cow was formally handed over to the family of Teresa Namirembe in the village of Kituntu. The event was also featured in an earlier edition of Helsingin Sanomat's monthly supplement in May 2006.
      At the beginning of this year, World Vision's own local staff finally found time to go and see how life has been going for Teresea Namirembe and her nine grandchildren after the arrival of Birungi, "my" dairy cow. Birungi means "bringer of all good things" in the local vernacular language, Luganda.
     
The news is good: both the family and Birungi have been doing well.
      At the same time a small misunderstanding was cleared up.
      The handing-over ceremony last year was such an exciting event that I was not able to ascertain fully the marital status or otherwise of Birungi. I thought at the time that she was a heifer, but as it turns out Birungi was already a married woman when she joined the family, and she had calved for the first time a whole year previously.
      This was of course only a very good thing indeed for Teresa Namirembe and her grandchildren, as Birungi started producing milk right out of the box.
      When Teresa milked her cow on the first morning, she collected four litres. She set aside a litre and a half for the family and sold the remainder for one thousand Ugandan shillings, or the equivalent of EUR 0.44 at today's rates.
     
Ms. Namirembe told the World Vision aid workers that this was the largest sum of money she had earned with a single transaction since the 1980s, when she was widowed.
      The cow has generated plenty of benefits for its new owners. The 66-year-old Namirembe has been able to buy medicines for herself, and she has been in much better health as a result.
      This in turn means she has been able to work more on her fields and this has accelerated the positive spiral. The children have had more nourishing food on the table, and there has also been money for more school equipment for them.
      Birungi is now carrying her second calf, and a happy family event is being anticipated in May of this year.
      Last year a great many Finns noticed what a good gift goats and cows make for people in the developing world.
      In 2006, a total of 370 dairy cows were bought, a splendid figure.
      World Vision's Christmas sales campaign saw sales of goats and cows almost doubled. Last May's article was also followed by a sales spurt, something that gave me no little personal satisfaction.
     
Another organisation supplying animal gifts to the Third World, FinnChurchAid (FCA, Kirkon ulkomaanapu in Finnish), reports that their "A Different Kind of Gift" online catalogue produced three times as much in sales last year, relative to 2005.
      FCA offers chickens (six for EUR 24.00), goats (at EUR 30.00), and pigs (five for EUR 55.00). Last year alone, 13,170 new goats were passed on to poor families in the developing world.
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print in the February issue of Kuukausiliite, HS's monthly colour supplement.


Links:
  World Vision: Animals
  World Vision Finland: Lahjaksi lehmä (In Finnish - a dairy cow costs EUR 400.00)
  FinnChurchAid: Toisenlainen lahja (In Finnish)
  FinnChurchAid (FCA): What We Do

JOUNI K. KEMPPAINEN / Helsingin Sanomat
jouni.kemppainen@hs.fi