Sindhulimadhi, October 12:

Women from deprived families in Kamalamai municipality of Sindhuli district are rearing goats for additional income and economic self-reliance.

The women thus engaged said they were earning good money and that they no longer had to look for work elsewhere. With assistance from Heifer International, the non-government organisation SEEDS-Nepal provided these women goats for free.

Sheela Joshi of Damar in Kamalamai Municipality-7 said she was into full-time goat rearing commercially and expressed her gratitude to SEEDS-Nepal for providing her seed-livestock free.

“We were so poor we had a hard time getting two square meals a day. There was no question of people like us scraping up capital to start an enterprise,” she said.

Mohankumari Karki of Rayatar in Kamalamai Municipality-5, who is also rearing goats after getting free seed-livestock from SEEDS-Nepal, echoed the sentiment. She added she was now in a position to support her family.

Karki said she aims to set an example that women too can work and economically support their family.

SEEDS-Nepal, Sindhuli, recently distributed goats free of cost to 160 poor families in the municipality under its women empowerment programme wherein each family was given two goats.

Meanwhile, in neighbouring Ramechhap, 200 goats died of an unknown disease in Lakhanpur VDC over the past five days leaving farmers in wards 1, 2, 3 and 4 worried.

The District Livestock Office said, however, the disease has been brought under control.