STUDENTS: BENOIT LANTHIER, KRISTINA LILLAKAS & WAYLON WISEMAN

In 2006, Canadian veterinarian Dr. Claire Card collaborated with the University of Saskatchewan, the Foundation for Aids Orphaned Children and VWB/VSF to develop and implement a goat production project in Mbarara, Uganda. This project helps improve the health and wellbeing of Ugandan families by providing them with goats and goat training. Through this project, some of Mbarara’s most vulnerable families- many of whom have been affected by HIV and AIDS- have raised their socioeconomic status and laid the foundation for a more hopeful future.

Like all VWB/VSF’s projects, the Uganda goat project is carefully designed so that communities can take over after our organization leaves. To achieve this sustainability, workshops held in Mbarara focus on goat husbandry so that reproduction increases and more goat kids are “paid forward” throughout the community. To increase the community’s self-sufficiency, the VWB/VSF team also trains interested community members in livestock management so they can provide veterinary services and act as demonstration farmers. These paraveterinarians (paravets) receive training in housing, sanitation, feeding, reproduction, as well as in preventative and basic veterinary care.

This summer, three veterinary students will be travel to Mbarara to donate their time and skills to this exciting project. While there, Benoit, Kristina and Waylon will help train the paravets, assist in disease monitoring and vaccination programs, organize livestock management worshops and conduct on-site inspection visits of existing farms.