Goats make ethical gifts

It is a truth widely acknowledged that travel broadens the mind. This might be something of a cliché, but it really is accurate. Some people make a separation between holidays and travel. I think the difference is how far out of your comfort zone you are willing to go. Sitting by the poolside in Florida drinking cocktails is not going to open your eyes to different cultures the way some other kinds of trips will.

Many more people are becoming more adventurous in terms of what kind of trips they are willing to go on. In particular students embarking on so called ‘gap-years’. Often these trips can involve some kind of voluntary work as a component of them. One thing that seems to be a common experience of those travelling to the third world is a lasting impression of just how different things are for the people living there.

As well as cultural differences, one thing that many are struck by when visiting Africa is the great suffering caused by poverty. It is a very hard hearted and callous person indeed who can see such misery and degradation and not want to do something to help. As well as this, seeing how people are forced to survive on so little makes the kinds of consumerist excesses seen in the West seem particularly obscene.

One aspect of the pressure to spend money that riles a lot of people up is the giving of gifts. Whether it is for Christmas, Birthdays or perhaps weddings there is great pressure to spend a lot of money on things that may not even be particularly valued or of use to the recipient. Whether giving or receiving gifts, this can make people who are conscious of global poverty uncomfortable. It is for those people that the concept of ‘ethical gifts’ was created.

An ethical gift is different to an ordinary gift. Instead of giving somebody something they don’t need, you give somebody else something to transform their lives for the better on behalf of the person you would have wasted money on. A good example of the kind of thing that can be given is goats.

The gift of a goat can help a struggling family in Africa provide for themselves. The animals are hardy and can graze on just about any vegetation that is around. They provide milk, meat, and fertiliser. Since the dawn of agriculture wealth has often been measured in terms of livestock. Giving somebody the gift of such an animal that seems so cheap (as little as £25) to us, but is so valuable to them truly is giving a hand up rather than a hand out.