THIS MORNING WE packed up 70 pregnant dairy cows and flew them from Shannon Airport to Romania.
The cows were donated by Irish farmers to charity Bóthar and 30 of them were raised by inmates at Shelton Abbey and Loughan House prisons. The heifers will be donated to improverished Romanian communities.
The heifers were gathered at Roscrea Mart yesterday after being brought there by the donor families. They were then transferred to Shannon Airport overnight where they were loaded onto the plane and dispatched to Romania early this morning.
Based on calving trends, the Bóthar herd airlifted today, which will be distributed to families in the Timisoara region, could grow to as many as 1,000 animals within ten years, transforming an otherwise poverty stricken community.
“This is a day that will change the lives of these Romanian families,” commented Bóthar executive director Deirdre Ryan. “It will lift these people from poverty and the best way I can describe it is that it would be the equivalent to us being handed over the keys to a successful business.”
Bóthar undertook this project in partnership with global charity Heifer International. CEO of this charity, Pierre Ferari said today he has been struck by the extraordinary sense of giving of the Irish people.
“In the middle of what I hope will be the worst times that this generation of Irish people today will know, you have remained one of the top nations in the world in terms of giving,” he said.
These heifers will take them from a sense of hopelessness to real hope as it is not just a once-off donation. We call it ‘passing on the gift’ as the heifer itself will give quality milk but the first born female calf is passed on to another family and Bóthar will return each year to put the heifers back in calf.
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