THE ROTARY CLUB OF BANBRIDGE
BÓTHAR
Bóthar is the Irish Third World Development Agency which provides poverty stricken families with the means to solve their problems permanently.
Bóthar assists needy families to overcome hunger, malnutrition and poverty in a
sustained manner through the development of animal production, better farming
systems, protection of the environment, and the establishment of local groups
capable of managing their own programmes.
The system is fairly simple. A poor family, which is selected by their own
community, is trained and prepared to receive an Irish farm animal. This
includes building a zero grazing unit to house the animal and the planting of
the necessary fodder to feed it. Bóthar then gives them a pregnant heifer or
goat, or a flock of chickens, or a breeding sow, or a crossbred cow or 3 hives
of bees. The family is supervised in their care of the animal and is required to
pass on the first female offspring to a neighbouring family selected under the
scheme.
With the milk or meat, or eggs or honey the family can not only provide themselves with a balanced diet but also can sell or barter the surplus. In this way they start earning an income with which they can send their children to school and buy household necessities.
The impact that one good quality farm animal has on an
impoverished family in the Developing World is enormous. One dairy cow or goat
means the difference between destitution and security; in some cases the
difference between life and death.
A comparison could be made to a peasant family in Ireland during the famine 150
years ago. Any of the families that starved to death during that period would
have been saved if they had been given one good dairy cow.