A happy occasion! The arrival of the baby Goats. For those of us who live a more urban existance this is a ''çute'' and fun occassion, however, for the guardians on our land this is an added revenue source for their survival... for Parid our supervisor he gets half of my baby goat just for caring for the goat.
All our guardians make minimum wage, are provided with a house on the land and medical care. This money is significant because 6 years ago these 23 families had no prospects for work that would provide for their families. The majority of our staff
We encourage the growth of Micro-businesses that help the villagers and our guardians help themselves. During festivals, or as bonuses we give them animals or seeds to inter-crop vegetables between our trees and around their homes. But the most impressive thing is that our supervisors have taught the others, through example, to save some of their money to buy more chickens, goats and rabbits to raise and sell for extra cash. This may seem like minor income by our standards, but in their little village this makes them ''well off''. Their increased wealth also trickles down to the villagers who create services and businesses for our guardians -- like transport services to move supplies in and out of the plantation, and small stores that sell needed items to neighbors.
The changes do not happen overnight but on every visit I notice some kind of improvement in the lives of everyone around the plantation.
Until next time, Stacy
GoldTeak is primarly a teak plantation, however, we multi-crop and have planted a percentage of our land with fruit trees like the orange, durian and guava trees that you see in the photos. Fruit trees mature more quickly than teak trees and allows us to start creating an income from the land to offset the long term costs of maintaining the teak wood.
Posts
