Piglets

* This is another article that I wrote for AOG World Relief*

What do you think of when you hear the word ‘piglet’? Maybe you think…cute or dirty or ‘oink” or smelly or funny or bacon. Surely, many different images, ideas and thoughts come to mind. Let me ask you this though…do you ever think ‘life changing’?

Under our comprehensive child sponsorship program there is a livestock component. This aspect of the program gives one female piglet to the family of each child being sponsored. The piglet comes with the responsibility of raising and breeding as well as eventually paying forward two healthy pigs to a neighbor (the same responsibility of paying it forward is expected then from the neighbors). Through the breeding of the piglet, families are able to generate an income. It’s the age-old story of giving a man a fishing rod rather than giving him food for a day. The livestock program is an empowering program that enables a family to generate income for themselves as well as help their surrounding neighbors.

About 50 pigs were handed out in the Dai Hung village a little over a month ago. Though each pig is precious and each pig is life changing…there were two in particular that we wanted to check up on when we re-visited the village last week.

A church in Australia raised the funds to hand out this particular lot of pigs…and when the word ‘church’ is used it isn’t just in reference to the adults. Two of the pigs handed out last month were funded by the kids of this church in Australia. Those two pigs were the ones that we wanted to check up on!

The first pig, affectionately named “Be Be” was given to a family with 6 kids. When we saw it last week, it was doing quite well having gained 5 kilos in 1 month! It happily grunted and sat in a pen as we came and observed. We weren’t the only ones to come and observe though-shortly after our arrival about 15 family and neighbors came and watched! Imagine, about 20 people in a small home all because of a pig! When the mother of the home was asked, “What will you are able to do now that you have a pig?” She responded saying that she will be able to help her family but also stated how excited she was that this pig would allow her to help someone else.

We found the second pig doing just as well, bigger in fact than the first one! The mother of this household has three children and was also left with her brother’s two children. Though life is difficult, hope and resiliency remain etched on her face. She spoke of looking forward to the pig growing bigger and eventually changing her family’s economic state.

“Piglet”- cute or life changing? You tell me. Not to say that a piglet can’t be both, only to point out the power behind such a small animal. It has the potential to generate income, to empower a family and to weave a community together in a web of mutual help- all of that from a pig.