During the month of April 2003, a terrible fundraiser for the organization Heifer International infiltrated my school. It was called Read to Feed, and during the course of the period between April and June, it convinced virtually every other kid in the Team A 6th grade that it was the ultimate solution to all the world's problems. It might as well be their god, the way they viciously defended it.
In case you don't know, Heifer International is a group that donates animals to impoverished families. Read to Feed is a fundraiser of theirs in which you sign a pledge for every hundred pages you read (at least, this is what they did at my school). At the end of the time span, all the money raised is given to Heifer. I was quite likely the only person to go against this horror.
Why is Heifer International so bad? Well, for one, they're sending animals off into third-world countries, where animal care is usually below adequate, to be kept in pens where they're kept for as long as they're useful-then they're killed and eaten.
Unfortunately, not all people are compassionate enough to care, so we need to delve deeper into its problems. Not only do they kill animals, but their entire strategy of ending hunger is inefficient!
I have read that one hamburger equals twelve pounds of grain, fifty square feet of rainforest, and 2,500 gallons of water. The food used to fatten the cow, the space used to keep it, and the water used to quench its thirst could be used to feed more people than an animal's corpse could!
Their second weak point is erosion. Cutting down trees to make space for animals, which Heifer supports the breeding of, causes soil erosion, which results in disasters such as landslides. Plants don't require much space, and help prevent erosion by holding together the soil.
This article is based on an e-mail I sent to one of my friends, warning her that Heifer might come to her school.
If Read to Feed, or any other Heifer International project comes to your school, remember, DON'T participate in it!
Send feedback about this article
Feedback:
Way to go, Wolf! You are halfway there with your article, "Heifer International-or is it Halfwit Irrational?" My beef with them is that they teach the locals how to eat beef when their culture is mainly vegetarian thereby helping the world's hunger problem by doing nothing. This is just a front group to the Beef Industries which is trying to teach our youth and theirs, propaganda. I look at it as another "teaching moment" where we can see how prevalent propaganda hidden right in front of many people's faces.
--Rick Scarfe
Ok, I just have to say that one thing is wrong in this, "Well, for one, they're sending animals off into third-world countries, where animal care is usually below adequate, to be kept in pens where they're kept for as long as they're useful-then they're killed and eaten." Heifer International is not completely horrible; they do teach the people how to safely take care of the animals and they don't just kill the animals right away. I don't know how well they do this, and I don't think Wolf Clifton does either. It seems like Heifer really does help change these peoples lives, and I don't think that this person should be dissing them so bad. (I know they are not the solution to the worlds problems.)
--Dena
|
