In cold climates, many indigenous people rely on the warm clothes and blankets they can make from sheep's thick wool. And subsistence farmers depend on sheep for income. Heifer Project participants learn how to care for their sheep so they will improve fragile grassland with their droppings, and not over-graze it. Heifer Project's sheep give three times as much wool as local ones. And with one or two offspring a year, a flock soon grows and a steady income is ensured.
Many people drift to crowded nearby cities to look for work.
Esperanza's family looked for an alternative. With 14 other families they formed a group and applied to Heifer Project for 30 Corriedale ewes and a ram. Heifer Project is training us in sheep management, animal health care, improving genetics, preserving natural resources, and commercializing wool and meat. I am sure we all share one dream and that is a world where people are never hungry anymore. Working together, the group is planting eucalyptus trees for windbreaks and building corrals.