In America … a new university graduate called Beatrice Biira, credits something utterly improbable for her success. She says it all started with a goat.
In western Uganda, little Beatrice desperately yearned for an education, but her peasant parents couldn’t afford to send her to school.
Meantime, in Niantic, Connecticut, children at small church wanted to donate money for a good cause. They decided to buy goats for African villagers, through an aid organisation.
One of the goats went to Beatrice’s parents and soon produced twins. When the kid goats were weaned, the children drank the goat’s milk for a nutritional boost and sold the surplus milk for extra money.
The cash from the milk accumulated, and Beatrice’s parents could now afford to send their daughter to school, where she thrived.
An American visiting the school was impressed and wrote a children’s book, Beatrice’s Goat, about how the gift of a goat had enabled a bright girl to go to school.
The book in turn inspired some others to bring Beatrice to America and finance high school and university studies.
Granted, foreign assistance doesn’t always work perfectly and is often much harder than it looks.
But as someone commented in Beatrice’s case it’s amazing what can happen when there’s a good model in place.
What’s more Beatrice plans to earn a master’s degree and return to Africa to work for an aid group.
Beatrice’s giddy happiness these days is a reminder that each of us does have the power to make a difference – to transform a girl’s life and maybe even an entire community with something as simple and cheap as a little goat.