When World Vision distributed hundreds of animals in Christine’s community in Uganda she thought she had missed out on an opportunity to improve life for her family.

Fortunately for Christine, there was another important part of this project that aimed to spread the benefits of raising animals to more and more families.

Each household that received a chicken, rooster and goat was asked to pass their first female offspring along to another family.

These acts of kindness would help countless more families to improve their livelihood and became the start of a pay-it-forward wave of change for this district in Uganda.

The livelihood project distributed one hen, rooster and goat to 600 households across the district as well as another 300 goats to other households and 40 male goats for communities to share.

Freddy Onguu, a livelihoods officer for the local project, explains that the idea of distributing animals is to improve the income and nutritional status of households in the district. “The project goal,” he explains, “is to enable families to meet their basic needs to live on a sustained basis.”

A gift from their neighbour

Christine’s family was grateful to receive the animals from their neighbor Korina after her livestock had their first female offspring.

A mother of five, Korina was crippled in 2008 and had found it hard to support her family. She received her chicken, rooster and goat in the first World Vision distribution.

Korina has already started to see the benefits of raising her animals. The goat and chickens are a source of nutritious food and she has sold some for extra money. This income has helped her to pay for school uniforms for her children.