By Godfred A. Polkuu
Chuchuliga (U/E), Oct 14, GNA – A pro poor project, dubbed ‘Buy me a goat’ has been launched at Chuchuliga, a community in the Builsa North Municipality of the Upper East Region.
The project aims to offer children within Chuchuliga and its environs the opportunity to own and breed goats to support their upkeep and education.
A total of 200 nanny goats were shared to pupils between the ages of five to ten years from various schools within Chuchuliga and other adjoining communities in the Municipality.
The pupils, as part of the project, also received 200 mango tree seedlings, organic manure to help plant the tree seedlings and stationeries, including pencils, exercise and story books among others.
The Founder of the Project, Mr Herb McClaugherty, in an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) at Chuchuliga after the launch, said the project was expected to run until every child in the community owned a goat.
He said the project would be scaled up to other rural communities in the Region so that every child would own a goat.
On how the project came about, Mr McClaugherty said, “In 2012, I was walking down a path at Sagadugu in the West Mamprusi Municipality of the North East Region, and a little boy pulled my sleeve and said buy me a goat. I thought about that for a few seconds.
“The little boy was called Joshua Sampana. I asked him, why do you want a goat? And he said I feel that if I have a goat, I have something tangible, and if I breed the goat, my mother will have enough money to buy me uniform to go to school.
“Joshua was not attending school,” Mr McClaugherty recalled.
He said little Joshua, therefore, ignited the initiative to buy goats for children, and indicated that the project was the fourth of its kind after it started at Sagadugu until it was interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Founder, an American from West Virginia, United States, said, “We came up with 200 goats which is more than we normally do. The most we have ever done is a 100, and we hope to be able to do this in the neighborhoods that need them the most in Northern Ghana.”
Mr McClaugherty said the project would be done annually until every child had a goat, and called on parents to ensure that they assisted their children to breed the goats.
He said if the offspring of the goats would be bought by the project to give to more children. “We asking their parents to breed them, and the first goat that they would get from breeding, we will buy from them and give to children without goats. So, we encourage them to keep the female goats and keep breeding,” he said.
Mr McClaugherty acknowledged the support of friends, family members and benevolent people who contributed to the success of the project, and reiterated the need for parents of the beneficiary children to ensure the project succeeded.
A parent from the Yipaala community, Mr Gabriel Aboriguuk, whose son benefited from the project, expressed gratitude to the Founder and management of the project, in an interview with the GNA.
“We are predominantly farmers, so we are happy that this project has come to help us care for our children. We thank them very much on behalf of our children, and we are happy that the welfare of the children is of concern to them,” the parent said.
GNA