ROCK HILL, SOUTH CAROLINA – A Winthrop University history professor seeks to raise $4,000 to buy 24 goats to help impoverished women in Nicaragua.
Ginger Williams, who has traveled to the Central American country repeatedly since 2007 for service learning projects, is spearheading the Winthrop Rocha Nicaragua Project. “We continue to return to Nicaragua to help people of this war-torn area become more sustainable,” said Williams.
Her plan is to give female goats to women and girls in nine families in three rural communities. The families would then be able to sell goat milk, cheese and soap at local markets and then possibly breed the females with a male goat placed in each community. Similar projects have been successful in Africa and Asia.
Each goat costs $180.
Already, the Rocha community has improved with Winthrop’s help through efforts to provide clean drinking water, education and economic opportunities. Typically the adults there complete less than two years of schooling. A school built there in the last decade with Winthrop’s help, and which bears Winthrop’s name, has meant the children now receive six years of education.
Williams traveled to Nicaragua March 12-21 to initiate the goat project and to begin incorporating other Winthrop departments. Others have been involved, but Williams would like to involve departments across the university. They include: education, human nutrition, political science, business, social work, history, economics and psychology.
The project also has an academic component. Williams is teaching a history class this semester where students are coming up with micro-lending ideas for the communities.
To give to the project, visit the Winthrop University Foundation here and designate the Rocha Nicaragua Fund #1567 for the specific fund.
For more information, contact Williams at williamsv@winthrop.edu.
