Ms. Minbhi, mother of 6 children, lives in village Photo Bheel, 25-km from Mirpurkhas city. She belongs to peasant community and works in agriculture field. These farmers have a tradition to get small loans from landlords to celebrate their religious and cultural rituals frequently. Since the peasants are illiterate, they cannot understand the way of exploitation, in which their debt increased by one or another reason. Anyway, these poor farmer families fall in trap under debt cycle. It is not possible for them to return the debt amount through their work. Thus they turn as bonded labour for years and face cruelties at the hands of tyrants.
The family of Ms. Minbhi has also spent many years living food insecure life under private confinement. Narrating her plight, she says, they did not have access to food to quench the hunger of children. “Sometimes we used to have little food to eat, which was not enough to fulfill our needs”.
“My husband works as daily wager and earns Rs.200– 300 daily only, depending on job. Sometimes, he could not find work and comes back empty handed. In this situation, somebody cannot imagine that how our children sleep hungry without having food”.
The farmer’s family did not have livestock to feed her children and larger family members, who need proper diet to stay safe and healthy. She feels lucky to have been identified by Sindh Rural Partners Organization (SRPO) under Accelerated Action Plan (AAP) to receive five goats and 10 poultry birds free of cost. The purpose of these assets was to feed nutrition-deficient children as goat milk and eggs could be helpful to improve their health and provide proper nutrients.
Now these valuable assets have brought happiness to the family. All family members take care of these goats and feed poultry birds. They have built mud-cage for poultry birds and makeshift shed for goats.
She recalls the day when they received goats and poultry birds and brought them to home, community children and relatives came to see the valuable gifts.
“In fact, we all family members felt excited and happy to tell visiting children and people how lucky we were to receive goats and poultry birds at this difficult time of poverty,” she said.
Now we have our own goats and poultry birds. Two goats have got pregnant quite recently. Her children again look excited to have baby goats soon. They have their own poultry eggs, which are enough to get enough diet to stay healthy.
