OVER 102 cows were donated by the business community on Friday to the ‘One Cow per poor Household’ project, also known as Girinka, in a fundraising organized by the Ministry of Agriculture (MINAGRI). The event was presided over by Agnes Kalibata, the Agriculture Minister and attended by close to 100 members of the business community. “Girinka is one of the programmes established by the government to achieve the MDGs (Millennium Development Goals). So let’s join hands and support the President who is the brains behind all that we are enjoying today,” she said. Over 469 cows have so far been pledged since the drive was launched by MINAGRI last month. Also speaking at the event, the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Trade and Industry, Emmanuel Hategeka, thaanked those who donated cows to help vulnerable groups in the country and help Kagame fulfil his promises. According to MINAGRI, 3000 vulnerable families in the country will receive cows by the end of this year, in this project. It intends to raise a similar number of cows annually for the next seven years. Of the 257,000 vulnerable families that were targeted to benefit from the project in 2002, only 90,000 have so far benefited. 40,000 cows were donated by the government, 12,000 by local communities and 960 from Kenya and Ireland. ‘Girinka’ is a program introduced by government to fight poverty by giving a cow to each poor family to enable the family to raise their nutritional and economic wellbeing. Ends
