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Ponies 'n' Kids

Nags 'n' Nippers

A  Nation's Moral Progress Shows In How It Treats Its Animals (Gandhi)  

... and Its Children (Echoes of Silence)

 

Animals, particularly horses, dogs and cats, have great empathy with people. As a first step in developing a larger project, Echoes of Silence is setting up a small refuge for abused and abandoned dogs, cats and other small animals In Managua, Nicaragua. Particularly dogs and cats offer children an immediate and familiar contact with animals,  working and caring for them under adult supervision. In this way, many animals and children experience tenderness,  possibly for the first time in their lives, and begin to establish relationships based on trust and gentleness. Thus Nags and Nippers offers tenderness and beauty to some of the most impoverished sectors of society, both animal and human.

     A friend, David McKnight of Wales, made this lovely video about the wider project.  A thousand thanks, David; and thanks also to the immortal Victor Jara, Chile's murdered singer/poet, for his lovely song precisely about street kids and ponies.

                                                       

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

US$25/UK£20: Transport, board and lodging for one child to stay at the farm for the weekend

US$150/UK£120: One pony redeemed from a life of misery.

 

 As the children become more at home and relaxed, once their relationships are begun and they learn something of the art of animal management, they are also encouraged to engage in some of the other work on the farm with a goal of beginning to learn to produce food, coffee and other crops in a sustainable and just manner.  The eco-farm also lets them experience a different kind of infrastructure, e.g: building with ‘eco-bricks’ - recycled plastic bottles; developing soak-away drainage systems to eradicate grey water with its attendant mosquitoes and water-borne diseases; producing cooking and lighting gas from animal waste, lasagna ‘no dig’ gardening; small-scale electric power from renewable sources; and many other wonderful, intelligent, simple yet supremely effective projects and techniques. In this context too the children are exposed to a practical philosophy of community and sharing that offers a different perspective – and indeed reality – from the rampant consumerist culture which is tragically destroying the very planet on which we all depend, by which they have been discarded. In all these ways, the children are empowered to make a real contribution to improving their families' life back in the barrio.

 

US$20/UK£15: Stabling, fodder and care for one pony for a week

US$200/UK£170: Month stipend for project coordinator

 

    Beyond this, Echoes of Silence is constantly seeking to link into the wider community, both within Nicaragua and abroad, with the goal of providing free clinics for the horses even during their working lives, for obtaining more dedicated land for fodder, for shelter and for recreation – for both horses and children, and for providing stipends for workers.  Our goal – grandiose but essential for a truly human world – is to work in broad coalition to help eradicate animal and child cruelty in Nicaragua and wherever it occurs, and, through that process, and at the same time, develop a society and societies that are intelligent, sustainable and beautiful, founded on cooperation, trust and solidarity. 

 

US$200/UK£170: Month stipend for 'horse whisperer'

 

   We welcome questions, suggestions and contacts of every sort.  In particular we want to form sister-relationships with pony clubs and other horse-related organisations.  Fund-raising would of course be an important component of such relationships – for example, through sponsored horse rides or similarly-supported bringing ponies into children’s hospitals or to disadvantaged children in northern society, but we also seek to encourage people to come to Nicaragua to see for themselves that we are indeed all part of the one world - exquisite, exquisitely fragile and wonderful beyond belief; that our children, so often disadvantaged, are full of spirit and laughter; and that together we can work to heal that shared world and with it all those - animal and human - who suffer so terribly under the current world order.

 

Contact: paulbaker2004@yahoo.com - Phone: (505) 77060717 or SKYPE: paulbakerhernandez2

 

Why celebrate Christmas, birthdays, etc. by choking the Earth  with plastic: toys, packaging, bags??! 

 

Why not give loved ones something entirely plastic-free, life-enhancing and beautiful, that lasts all year:- membership of Nags, Nippers 'n' Mother Earth?.

Why not give your own immediate family membership, so you and your children can work together on something life-giving and beautiful throughout 2018

 

Or simply donate  your own sum on behalf of the person you wish to make happy.

 

US$25.00/UK£20 (more if you can, less if you can't). 

 

Members, donors and recipients receive a special card, plus regular updates, make direct links with rescued ponies and children, participate in special accompaniment brigades to Nicaragua, and have a real say in the project.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

DONATE/JOIN THE WORK

USA  Online:

https://goo.gl/Z64w29 

UK Online: 

Halifax Savings Account no:  01153296. Sort Code: 11-00-36.

UK Mail:

Cheques, etc. made out to 'Christine Jennings' Send to C.M. Jennings, Treasurer, Echoes of Silence, 3 Upper Regents Park, Bradford on Avon, BA15 1EB, England.  

Phone: (01225) 866181

 

Thanks to our fiscal sponsor, The Aliance for Global Justice, US donations are tax-exempt.

 

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