HARMONY FARM will hold an open day with farm walks and tea/cakes in aid of BÓTHAR. The aim is to collect the necessary air-fare to get Bell (pictured above with Zoli) and other goats to fly to Africa to families in need.
Harmony Farm's involvement with Bóthar
Our son, Zoli was 9 years old when he decided to donate one of his pet goatlings to Bóthar, in order to help a family in Africa. Since then whenever his milking goats produce suitable daughters, he sends one to Bóthar, a wonderful charitable organisation using livestock as development aid, enabling poverty stricken families to produce food for themselves and a surplus to sell, the income then used for medical care, education and a much improved quality of life. The recipient families will donate the first female offspring of the livestock they received to another family, so that the Irish aid ripples through a whole community.
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The ethos of Bóthar is to promote sustainable development: “The co-dependent ecology of plants and animals is evident in all of our projects, where plants and tree plots are established alongside our livestock, thus maximizing the gains of both. [...] In this way both the stock of the beneficiary and the surrounding plant life mutually prosper.”
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The first goatling donated to Bóthar in 2012.
Farm Visit: in 2012, Zoli received a present of some wonderful DVDs and booklets from Bóthar. Looking at this material we realised that our smallholding here in the West of Ireland is similar in many ways to family farms all around the world, since we use traditional farming methods and keep old breeds of animals. This prompted us to offer an open farm day experience to people who would like to help Bóthar’s work, and who would be interested in how a small traditional farm works.
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Picture: we use traditional methods to save hay
Our open day will feature farm tours, showcasing the species-rich meadows and pastures, the native woodlands and all the farm animals sharing the smallholding with us, as well as the gardens, orchard, and hedgerows. Bell (the goatling) will receive her visitors in the “Kids corner”, alongside her friend Astrid. There will be treasure hunts, a colouring competition, display of wonderful posters prepared by the pupils of Corrigeenroe National School in 2013 (for our first Open Day) on several countries where families receive the living gift of farm animals from Bóthar. After the walk, people can enjoy a cuppa with cakes. All donations will be gratefully received and will be forwarded to Bóthar.
Harmony Farm is a family run, 12 acre mixed farm in Co. Roscommon. We manage our land using ecological principles. We offer smallholding, self sufficiency, cancer-fighting food courses.
Please get in touch for further information and directions to our farm:
e-mail: harmony.farm13@gmail.com
Facebook: Harmony Farm Smallholding
Tel: 0863972819
