Latvia: Support of Orphanage and Community through Small Animal Husbandry and Gardening

Project Overview:

The Children’s Orphanage house and Gaujiena’s specialized boarding school have around 145 children from all over the Latvian Aluksne District. The children, aged two to 18 years living in the orphanage, have been taken from their parents for reasons such as alcohol abuse, neglect and domestic violence. The specialized boarding school houses children with various learning and behavior difficulties. Stories about the children’s behavior have created fear among the villagers, so the orphanage and school are socially isolated. Heifer is working in this Latvia community to change that through joint trainings and different activities.

Twenty-six families, including the orphanage and the school, which are considered two families, will be given chicken, geese or ducks, sheep or goats, and berry plants such as raspberries, strawberries, black currants or chokeberries. Each family will receive five sheep or goats or the equivalent poultry and berry plants. The orphanage house and school will receive berry plants.

A local berry cultivation company, LTD Lienama Aluksne, is buying the berries to allow the community will raise their income in the second year of the project. Additionally, Heifer will provide all participants with training in small animal keeping, gardening and marketing, as well as technical and veterinarian assistance. An additional 26 families will benefit through Passing on the Gift.

Key Updates:

• Families have been renovating and building shelters for their animals to improve the living conditions of livestock, and have worked hard to prepare feed for winter season. Some of the families have passed on sheep and poultry.
• There have been two trainings and a meeting with a Heifer International representative from Lithuania. Participants have had two experience exchange trips to a farm that grows raspberries and strawberries.
• The children of Gaujiena’s boarding school have helped with harvesting carrots and fodder beets, have participated in the haymaking process for sheep, and have helped to pack the fleece sheared from sheep.
• We can conclude from this period that many families will not only provide themselves with food, but will also be able to develop small businesses and improve their financial state. The first strawberry yield was profitable, and from these earnings families bought sugar to preserve the berries, and fertilizers for the strawberry plants. Next autumn they plan to extend their strawberry plantations.
• The family of Lilita Bernarte, who received a chicken incubator, was successful in hatching chickens not only for themselves and other participants of the project, but also for other individuals.