Books |
Beatrice’s Goat
Page McBrier
By
Published: Jan 01, 2008
Category:
Children
Beatrice Biira’s story was turned into a children’s book, and she was featured on “60 Minutes”, but I knew nothing about her until I read a New York Times column by Nicholas Kristof.
He wrote it because Beatrice has just graduated from Connecticut College.
This is fairly amazing because, at 9, Beatrice was an illiterate child who lived with her parents and five brothers and sisters in a poor village in Uganda.
Half a world away, kids at the Niantic Community Church in Nantic, Connecticut were looking for a cause. They heard about Heifer International, the group that gives farm animals to poor families in rural communities and teaches them how to care for them. Intrigued, they bought a goat.
In 1991, a dozen goats were given to families in Beatrice’s village. Beatrice’s family got one of them. They named it Mugisa, which means “luck”.
And so it was. The goat gave birth. And milk. That meant something to sell, which meant money — and, eventually, school for a little girl who wanted nothing more than to go to school.
Beatrice was lucky too. Americans met her. A gifted writer and illustrator created a book for kids, age 4 to 8. It won awards. Spawned media. And, in time, made possible a scholarship for Beatrice to go to Uganda’s best school, then to a boarding school in Massachusetts, and, finally, to Connecticut College. Now, she says, she’s on to a graduate degree — in public service, what else? — and then back to Uganda to help her people.
The economist Jeffrey Sachs has coined a phrase: the “Beatrice Theorem” — “Small inputs can lead to large outcomes.”
Anyone who’s ever been the recipient of a lucky break knows the power of this theorem. An internship, a loan, an academic award, a book — even a kind word — can change our circumstances. That is why so many spiritual masters and savvy sociologists remind us to do what we can in the place where we are.
Little kids can’t be expected to grasp a concept that is so paradoxical: small changes, big acts.
But kids can care about a little girl who is poor and hungry, and then is healthy and happy — it’s a kind of Cinderella story, just with a goat in the role of a prince.
Kids can appreciate a short book with lovely pictures.
And maybe, down the line, kids can surprise you and suggest, instead of one more thing for them, that you give some money to the cause that buys goats.
We’re putting this book in the bedtime reading pile. Because, as the saga of Beatrice Biira proves, you never really know how far a pebble can ripple.
To buy the paperback edition of “Beatrice’s Goat”, click here.
To buy the hardcover edition of “Beatrice’s Goat”, click here.
To read the transcript of the “60 Minutes” story about Beatrice, click here.
To visit the Heifer International web site, click here.
