EMPOWERING SYRIAN REFUGEES
The need is great, so this has goat to be our biggest year yet! Our goal this year is to give 2,108 milk goats to 1,054 families. With your help, we can not only give the concrete, practical gift of goats, but the less tangible, but perhaps more important gift of self-sufficiency and dignity.
“For some families, goat milk, yogurt, and cheese is the basis of their daily diet, as there is no other food.”
WHY GOATS?
Shami goats are prolific milk producers—a female Shami goat can produce between 350 to 650 liters of milk each year.
Goat milk? If not, you should! Goat milk is not only highly nutritious, but also more easily digestible than cow’s milk. Having a ready source of healthy fat and protein that is also rich in vitamins A, B, K, E, and D is so important for our beneficiaries because just getting to the nearest town for food and supplies is too expensive for most families to do on a regular basis.
Goat milk is not just for drinking! It is also used to make a wide range of delicious foods like labneh, a strained yogurt that is often flavored with olive oil and spices. Goat milk is also used to make a deliciously creamy butter, ghee, and tangy goat cheese.
We don’t provide just any, old goats. We source a Shami-Baladi crossbreed. Also fittingly known as Damascus goats, Shami goats are a friendly breed native to the Middle East. Shami goats are prolific milk producers—a female Shami goat can produce between 350 to 650 liters of milk each year. Not only that, Shami goats have a reputation for birthing twins and triplets. Baladi goats are well-adapted to hot, arid environments like the Jordanian deserts where beneficiaries of LHI’s Gather for Goats program live. So, the goats that LHI sources are ideal for helping people achieve self-sufficiency because they can not only survive less-than-favorable conditions, but also produce a lot of milk and baby goats!
LHI wants to be sure that the goats we distribute are young and healthy. So, we count on Mohammed, a goat expert with training from the University of Jordan, to inspect each goat prior to distribution. Only the best goats for the job pass Mohammed’s inspection!
“Goat herding was the profession of our ancestors. They slept with their goats, ate with their goats. In the snow, they slept with their goats.”
HOW DID GATHER FOR GOATS BEGIN?
LHI Founder and Director Hayley Smith channels her inner goat.
Gather for Goats, one of LHI’s longest-running programs, provides milk goats to one of the world’s largest forcibly-displaced people in the world: Syrians who have fled a decade-long civil war. An estimated 1.3 Syrian refugees now live in Jordan, often in unofficial desert camps on the edges of Jordanian society.
In 2017, while distributing aid supplies to refugees living near the town of Al Mafraq in Jordan (very near the Syrian border), LHI founder and director Hayley Smith asked beneficiaries what their greatest needs were. The response was overwhelmingly goats!
Back in Syria, the families had large herds of goats. Tens, sometimes even hundreds of goats. In fact, they had been herding goats for generations. Goats provide a much-needed source of protein, which is hard to come by in the desert. Having goats again, the beneficiaries said, would set them up with a sustainable source of milk for several years. And by selling or raising baby goats, they could generate income to help get them back on their feet again.
The request made sense, so Hayley sought out a professor of agriculture at the University of Jordan in Amman and Jabal Zamzam, a charity based in Al Mafraq, to find out how to launch a goat distribution program. The result? In May 2017 LHI distributed its first 286 goats to its first 143 families. And we have only grown the program from there! To date, we’ve distributed 3.418 milk goats to Syrian families in Jordan!
“We just want to live so that we can go back to Syria. But it seems like it will never happen.”
WHY ARE SYRIAN FAMILIES IN JORDAN?
Many Syrian families left behind large herds of goats when they fled the civil war to find safety in Jordan.
In 2011, Syrian students peacefully protested the oppressive policies of the Assad family, which had been in power in Syria for four decades. These protests were met with brutal reprisal. Soon, the country was plunged into a civil war that has left countless civilians dead, crucial infrastructure in ruins, and the country split between several factions fighting for control of the country. Violence, as well as a dire humanitarian crisis—millions of Syrians have been cut off from reliable access to food, water, medicine, and other essentials—have forced millions of Syrians to flee the lands they have called home for centuries in search of a better, safer life.
Many make their way south to find refuge in neighboring Jordan. While there are two official refugee camps in Jordan, around 82% of Syrian refugees live in small unofficial camps in the Jordanian desert. There, resources are scarce—in one camp we visited there was only one bathroom for 155 families.
While many Syrian refugees in Jordan hope to return to Syria one day, they know that there is no end to the war in sight. And, even if there were, so much has been destroyed that there would not be much to go back to. So, Syrian refugees in Jordan hope for the means to be self-sufficient, and not dependent on humanitarian aid for survival. For any person, there is great dignity in being able to provide for yourself and your family.
“Now my children can drink milk every day.”
HOW DOES LHI DISTRIBUTE GOATS?
LHI Founder and Director Hayley Smith is ready to distribute goats to Syrian refugee families!
Sourcing goats, screening applications from families who’d like to receive goats, and distributing goats is a huge job, and one we could not do without our partners. In 2021, we said goodbye and thank you to our first partner, Al Mafraq, and formed a new partnership with an organization called Al Jahaz. We work primarily with G.O.A.T. coordinator Sana’, whose father started Al Jahaz to support Syrian refugees and Jordanians in need in the Madaba area. Sana’, who has a degree in English and works for the Department of Agriculture in Madaba, Jordan, volunteers her time to Al Jahaz despite her busy life as a working mom of 5!
Local shepherds also volunteer their time to care for the goats before distribution. These shepherds feed the goats, look after their health, and give them vitamins to ensure they are as healthy as possible when they go to their new homes.
Sana’ and the Al Jahaz team’s work does not end when the goats are distributed. The team follows up with recipients and helps us keep track of how much milk has been produced and how many baby goats have been born. So far, LHI goats have produced 13,137,184 liters of milk and 9,073 baby goats. That’s udderly amazing!
PROGRAM IMPACT
Check out the latest news from Jordan on our blog:
“For some families, goat milk, yogurt, and cheese is the basis of their daily diet, as there is no other food.”