Dear Friends,
When I heard the news I had to write to tell you about Zhang Chunxia! I am very excited to be sharing this good news story with you for Easter.
Zhang did it! She finally saved enough Yuan to send her little boy Yang to secondary school!
She is overjoyed – can you believe it friends! What an incredible achievement for her. Against all the odds she has managed to eke out a living on the rough and arid land of her home province of Sichuan in China.
Nobody thought that Zhang had a chance. “You’ll have to move to the city and send Yang to work just like everybody else” her neighbours told her. They called her foolish when she started a training course with the small Bóthar group in her village. They laughed at her when she told them she was growing food to prepare for rabbits that she would receive from Bóthar. “it won’t work you are wasting your time” they said.
…just three short months after Zhang received her rabbits her doubting neighbours stopped laughing.
8 kits (baby rabbits) - that’s how many young a female rabbit will produce in a litter, with an average female having 4 – 6 litters a year. After a couple of weeks those kits are mature and ready for market where Zhang can fetch about 16 Yuan a kit. Now, that might not sound like much to you or I but when you are hungry and 17 Yuan will buy a 7kg bag of rice it’s a lot of money!
As well as money from the sale of kits, Zhang has used the manure from her rabbits to help fertilise and cultivate her small plot of land. Now she is successfully growing crops on a plot that was previously unproductive!
Best of all Zhang is able to send Yang, her 12 year-old son, to secondary school and not to work. This is her greatest wish achieved, she has high hopes for Yang and with a secondary education she knows she is giving him a real chance for a different future.
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There were great celebrations recently when a delighted Zhang fulfilled her obligations to her village group and ‘passed –on’ the gift of a trio of breeding rabbits to another trained and prepared family.
At the pass-on ceremony Zhang spoke from the heart about how much her rabbits have helped her to achieve. Smiling as she looked at Yang in his school uniform, Zhang wished the next family the same good fortune that the Bóthar rabbits had brought to her.
As you know friends, your support is important to us. If you could assist us once again with our Easter appeal we would be very grateful. Your donation can sponsor the gift of rabbits, training and veterinary back-up for a family in the Sichuan province of China.
Instead of sending chocolate bunnies this year, why not send the Easter bunny to China to help a family just like Zhangs? Bóthar will give you a bunny card to give to someone special on Easter Sunday as an alternative to an Easter Egg.
Please take time to fill in the donation form below and return it, together with your donation, in the reply paid envelope provided.
Alternatively you can telephone us on 1850 82 99 99 and make a donation using your credit card.
Wishing you a peaceful Easter
Mise le meas
Mick Lally
P.S: Please send your donation back today so that you can start to help another family straight away.
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