Sustainable Development
Bóthar encourages and facilitates sustainable development in all the projects we support in a number of ways.
The codependent ecology of plants and animals is evident in all of our projects, where plants and tree plots are established alongside our livestock, maximizing the gains of both.
In the case of our heifer projects, manure is used as a natural fertiliser, while animal urine is used as an insecticide, which in turn leads to the improved production of the plants and fodder, which returns again to the cycle to feed the animals. In this way both the stock of the beneficiary and the surrounding plant life mutually prosper.
Regarding financial sustainability, revolving funds and micro-credit loans established in many of our projects allow people to purchase animals or goods, while the repayment of the loan, or the reimbursement of the fund, allows for the next phase of the project to take place without an additional external financial support. In this way, the project becomes self-sustaining and increasingly stable over time.
In ALL cases, local management committees are set up and project members trained in all aspects necessary to run the project themselves, giving them ownership of the project.
Those that receive an animal are required to pass on the offspring to another member of the project. So, the beneficiary becomes a donor and, and the original donation continues to multiply.