Goat Kit ($175)

There are many reasons why goats are among the most popular livestock animals in the world: they cost relatively little to maintain, provide milk and can be groomed for high-value raw materials like cashmere. A small herd of goats can satisfy household needs for food and income for years to come.

Why Help Is Needed

In rural areas where economies are based on agriculture, livestock is often a family’s most important commodity. But it’s often prohibitively expensive for a family to purchase their first animal. Without a way to get started, rural families remain impoverished.

Mercy Corps In Action

Goats are one of the hardiest, most easily maintained and least expensive animals farmers can raise. They’re able to eat nearly any greenery for fodder, produce multiple offspring each year and require little veterinary assistance. In a short time they can significantly — and sustainably — improve a family’s livelihood, nutrition and earnings.

Tumurchuluun's Story

For Mongolians like Tumurchuluun, herding goats is both a centuries-old tradition and a modern way of life.

There's perhaps no part of the world that depends on livestock as much as rural Mongolia, where herds determine the very survival of nomadic families. But recent years have been especially difficult for traditional herders: colder-than-average winters and encroaching desert sands have resulted in the loss of thousands of goats.

Tumurchuluun and his family live in one of the harshest areas of Mongolia's sweeping Gobi Desert. He is a master herder in this area, but he has felt the hardship of recent years as much as younger and less-experienced farmers.

Mercy Corps is helping families like Tumurchuluun's protect their herds and livelihoods through technical training, veterinary services and other support. We helped nomads form a farmer's cooperative where members can depend on each other during hard times. We've also linked herders to local markets where they can gain higher prices for cashmere and milk products.

Goat Kit ($175)
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Purchase of a Mercy Kit is a symbolic gift that supports Mercy Corps' worldwide programs to help children and families in need. The Breastfeeding Kit, Climate Change Kit, Fuel-Efficient Stove Kit, Cricket Farm Kit, Send an Orphan to School Kit, Plant a Tree Kit, Play to Heal Kit and Uganda Farm Kit supports those specific project funds. Proceeds from the sale of other Mercy Kits will be used where most needed.