PERRYVILLE, Ark. (AP) – Dozens of sheep rush toward Dawn Janz as she points her disposable camera at their pen, ready to capture the livestock on film amid the rolling hills.
Janz was among about a dozen women taking part in Heifer Project International’s recent weeklong project on sustainable agriculture. A few members would go on to apply their knowledge in developing countries; for the others, mostly urban dwellers, it was simply a chance to get a taste of the rural rough.
Janz, 33, considered it a vacation from her corporate management job near Chicago.
“This is about as far away from my regular day as you can get,” said Janz, trying to get a shot of an ewe and its baby. “I love being this close to the sheep.”
The Little Rock-based charity hosts its Ranch Hand Week once a year so that women from across the country can learn to help impoverished nations. Heifer Project distributes animals around the globe and teaches recipients how to turn them into income-producing livestock.
Donors can purchase pairs of chickens or shares in a water buffalo. The animals aren’t slaughtered for food, but used to produce goods – milk, eggs, fertilizer or offspring – that can be consumed or sold.
“Many of these women are urban dwellers,” organizer Shirley Gilmore said. “We teach the women about the animals and how the people we help use the products of the animals.”
The women rise early, moving poultry from their cages, making cheese, feeding camels and riding the water buffalo.
“We helped build the lamb feeders,” said Jo Flesner of Sioux Falls, N.D., pointing to a herd crowding around two large, metal bins. “I helped bottle-feed the baby lambs and goats.”
Flesner, a church minister, said her congregation donates to Heifer Project and she wanted to learn more about the charity. She also said the rural surroundings were a change of pace.
“This little one here, we got to see it born,” she said, petting a baby lamb. “She’s doing good.”
Gilmore said the course, which revolves around gender equity and the issues women face in other cultures, is scheduled in the spring so the women can help when the ewes begin birthing.
Mary Hart, of Cleveland, plans to take what she’s learned back to her church to share with others at a women’s retreat this fall.
“I think if everyone had the opportunity to participate in programs like this, we wouldn’t have the situation with our military,” Hart said. “Maybe we all need to live in a global village.”
Others will put their experiences to daily use: Lynn Duerksen, 23, of Windom, Minn., plans to go home to manage a 265 cow dairy farm after her time in Arkansas.
Kelly Gaughan, 22, found herself at the ranch after learning about Heifer Project while traveling in Tanzania. Her goal is to work on an organic farm in Rhode Island and hopefully move on to another farm in New Zealand.
“This put me back to the land and taught me to respect where foods comes from,” said Gaughan, who grew up on a farm in Cherry Valley, N.Y. “I thought maybe I could be helpful. I need to be doing something that would help people.”
But for others like Janz, the experience has a different meaning.
“I have an understanding now of how one animal can make a world of difference in a family’s life,” she said.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
