OSF Feeding Programs...

OSF has done much research regarding feeding programs and has even received one-to-one advice from the World Food Program.  Here OSF was enticed into the idea of purchasing large livestock in order to provide a long-term sustainable feeding program for the hundreds of children at New Life and in future, for WECOSA schools. 

porridgetime

 

Considering the sheer number of children that needed to be fed each day at the Community and its 5 schools, OSF and New Life decided that cows were the best ideas because of their fantastic benefits:

 

One cow can produce up to 9 litres of milk every day under normal conditions and one cow can live for up to 25 years.

 

By doing the math, OSF worked out that 5 cows, giving up to 200ml of milk per day per child, could provide for up to 230 children per day. That’s 83,950 portions per year, that’s 2,098,750 portions in all 5 cows’ lifetimes!

 

 

Each cow represents one feeding program!

 

The cows offer a self-sustaining feeding program as their produce can be sold to purchase fodder (food for the cows) and other requirements to keep the livestock healthy. Not only that, these earnings could also be used to purchase grain for the children to mix with the cow milk, thereby creating a healthy portion of porridge per day.

 

OSF successfully organised a fundraising event in Belgium in June 2007 by fundraising at a school in Brussels (The International School of Brussels) and pledging to various private donors. OSF raised nearly 2,000 Euros in just over a month! OSF therefore pulled together sufficient funds to buy 5 cows – one for each New Life School!

 

The cows were bought at the end of July 2007 and are currently being housed at two of the New Life schools (at Kinoo and Uthiru).

 

The cows have already proved to be such a great success that OSF and New Life are considering purchasing yet more livestock in the future (including goats, chickens etc.) as well as investing in planting and agriculture. OSF believes that creating a self-sustaining feeding program is the only way forward and that no organisation should rely on another for such an important resource. New Life is already looking into purchasing a plot of fertile land outside one of its school plots so as to begin a new farming program.

 

These projects always need extra funding so if you would like to help out or make a pledge please Contact Us or visit our Donations page!

5 Cows for 5 Schools!

Thanks to the combination of the tremendously generous offers from 2 private sponsors and the fantastic fundraising efforts at the ISB raffle, we have been able to purchase 5 cows for 5 schools in the Uthiru slum!

 

 

 cow2          Daisy

 

 

Unfortunately, cows are known to suffer from depression if they are housed on their own - this can lead to a drastic reduction in milk producted (sometimes stopping all together) - and so, in order to keep our new found friends happy, we have decided to keep 2 and 3 cows together at 2 separate locations.

 

 

 teacher_and_kids_and_cow                 entourage_kids

    

One of the locations will be in Kinoo where the school has eagerly renovated a cow stall and enclosure:

 

 

cow-pen 

 

 

Cow Day Celebrations!

 

To celebrate there was a large distribution of food (and biscuits!), music as well as a cow drawing competition! The younger children coloured some pre-prepared pictures, and the older children drew their own. The best pieces of will soon be sent out to the Cow donors as a big thank you from all the children at OSF.

 

 2_kids_drawing            older_kids_drawing

 

 

younger_kids_drawing 

 

Here are some of the fabulous works of art drawn by our brilliant students:

 

 

 cow_pic_2               cow_pic_1

 

 

 

cow_jacob              cow_pic_3

 
   
 
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