Mali Sheep Project

A DIFFERENT WAY OF MAKING YOUR GIFTS

By offering a sheep, you enable a family to have two meals per day.

Till recently, many rural women and their families in the region of Mopti (Mali) could afford only one meal a day. Thanks to the development of microcredit activities spurred by the NGO Prométhée and its " sheep project ", rural women and their families are now eating two meals a day.

The WWSF Women's World Summit Foundation supports this project and invites you to also participate by giving a sheep to a rural woman in Mali for rearing, consumption or sale in the name of your loved ones, friends, colleagues, associates or employees (CHF 50 / US$ 40 / € 35 per sheep).

How does it work ?
With a credit obtained from her village group, the rural woman receives a lamb that she will fatten and re-sell for a substantial profit. She reimburses her credit once the sheep is sold, allowing other rural women to acquire a lamb and benefit from the rotating microcredit system.

It is important to know that in Mali, as in much of Africa, women are the sole financial source for their children's education and very often supply the basic nutrition for the family.

WWSF has a close relationship with the Malian association Prométhée and can vouch for their integrity. We assure you that your gift will reach the intended beneficiaries.

How to make your gift?
With your payment (CHF 50 / US$ 40 / € 35 per lamb) please give your full address so that we can send you a confirmation card (with your sheep number) for you to forward to the person in whose name you made the gift.

A WWSF campaign to help implement the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)

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THE EXCEPTIONAL ECONOMIC IMPACT OF YOUR GIFT

Before the intervention of the NGO Prométhée with whom we are in contact and which works with close to 11'000 rural women in the Mopti area of Mali, the profit women received from raising sheep was minimal - CHF 12 ($10 or €8) per sheep. In the area, these sheep are called "house sheep" ("moutons de case" in French) because the women raise them in their own courtyards.

Today, women like Kadidja Timbo of the village of Denga Sare, Fati Seni of Gnonton or Mariam Dembélé of Saré Bambara, make a net profit of CHF 110 to 180 per sheep (around € 75-115 or $ 88 to 145), and they fatten three or four of them. When one knows that the salary of a civil servant starting his career is around CHF 58 per month, one realizes the exceptional economic impact of such an initiative. Thanks to this activity, women can for the first time cover the needs of their families in terms of food, clothing, health and the schooling of children. It is not excessive to speak of a small revolution.

But the benefits do not end there. The raising of sheep enables the creation of additional jobs and stimulates the local and regional economy.

• The women sell the wool to weavers, from where it goes to the tailors who make clothes they sell to the merchants who put them on the market.
• The hide is sold to shoemakers and industrialists to be transformed into shoes, bags, etc
• The meat is sold to butchers.
• Furthermore, the manure produced by the sheep, enriches the gardens and the fields, enhancing the yields of vegetables, millet and rice.

Today, some women's associations export the hides as far as South Africa (RSA). Merchants export the sheep and the wool to places as far away as the Ivory Coast, Senegal or even Spain.

This activity enables a very rapid transformation of the economic situation of households. The empowerment of rural women it encourages is an absolutely indispensable step in view of reaching the UN Millennium Development Goals of halving extreme poverty by the year 2015.

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A few concrete examples:

• Oumou Diarra , whose husband had left the village five years earlier, has been ill since his departure. Thanks to a microcredit of 10'000 CFA francs (about $ 18) given to her by her village association, she reached amazing results in her sheep raising ventures. Her income enables her to now pay for her health care ($ 250 per year), to feed a family of seven people, to set aside more than $ 225, and to own a bull worth over $ 200.

• Mariam Dembélé a 54 year old widow, cares for 14 children. Her association gave her a microcredit with which she started raising sheep in 2003. Her success is such that todays the feeds and educates these 14 children alone, covers all health costs and improves her home. She even managed to save $ 1600.

• With a modest microcredit of only $ 10, Kadidja Timbo (45 years, with eight children) started with two goats. Today, she owns two fat sheep worth $ 360 and her savings top $ 725. In addition, she has started a small shop of basic items where most of the villagers do their shopping.

Let us remember that 75 per cent of the population in Mali lives on $ 1.00 or less per day.

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