Member travels globe helping others help themselves
Changing the world, one cow at a time

SHARING SKILLS — PEF member Dr. Roger Ellis, a veterinarian, coaches the village animal health worker in Tocoa, Honduras on how to vaccinate cattle for rabies. Ellis visited the village in February for Heifer International which provided the calves.

By SHERRY HALBROOK
Dr. Roger Ellis is not just appalled by world hunger, poverty, and the destruction of our environment. He’s doing something about it.

“Do you realize enough people die of starvation every day to fill 150 airliners? How did we end up with so much food when most of the world doesn’t have enough?” Ellis asks. The search for answers to such questions drives him to travel the globe.

A field veterinarian for the state Department of Agriculture and Markets, the Region 8 PEF member uses his vacation and personal time to travel the world as a volunteer for charitable organizations, and as a member of the board of directors and executive council of a U.S.-based global charity — Heifer International. 

Ellis has earned many honors for his selfless efforts, including the regional Special Service Award from Heifer, Lions International’s Melvin Jones Award, and the Merit Award of the Capital District Veterinary Medical Society.

“Roger is a wonderful example of the very professional and caring members we have in Division 275, said PEF Executive Board Member Priscilla Sweet. “He uses his professional skills to serve not just New Yorkers, but others far away as well.”

Not a cup, but a cow
Through its gifts of more than 25 different kinds of animals and plants — from silkworms and bees to water buffaloes and trees — Heifer has helped more than 4.5 million families in 50 countries lift themselves from poverty and become self-reliant.

Heifer International was founded by Dan West, an American relief worker during the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s who grew frustrated by the futility of ladling out reconstituted milk one cup at a time to seemingly endless lines of refugees. 

West became convinced that what they really needed was a cow, not just a cup of milk. Hence the name “Heifer” International, which began in 1944 by distributing young female cows or heifers to hungry people in Puerto Rico. In return, the recipients agreed to pass on the gift by giving their cow’s first heifer calf to another needy person in their community.

“Our efforts at Heifer International are based on 12 principles,” Ellis said, “including passing on the gift, accountability and improving the environment.”

Overcoming violence, strife
“I got interested in it because it helps people help themselves,” said Ellis, who first discovered Heifer International in the mid-1980s. After hearing of the organization’s good work, Ellis sent it a donation. Then, he decided to check out a Heifer project while he was visiting war-torn Nicaragua with a church group. What he found was a project providing goats to local people through an agricultural college there.

“In spite of the political instability at that time in Nicaragua, the goat project had been successfully completed and was continuing on its own,” Ellis said.

BEARING GIFTS — PEF member Dr. Roger Ellis, a veterinarian, delivers animal medicines to Asian villagers.

Volunteers ‘invaluable’
As his interest and involvement in Heifer grew, Ellis began leading groups made up mostly of veterinarians to visit Heifer International projects in Central America, Africa and South East Asia where they help teach people how to care for the animals and get the greatest benefit from them. 

In February, Ellis lead a group of eight veterinarians, two veterinarian students and a herd manager visiting Heifer projects in Honduras. Back in the states, he fills his evenings and weekends speaking about Heifer to interested community and religious groups.

While Ellis now focuses much of his efforts on Heifer projects, he is still involved on a broader scale. In February 1999, Ellis led the first disaster response construction and recovery team to Honduras for the Volunteers in Mission program of the United Methodist Committee on Relief/Church World Service.

“The services of volunteers such as Roger Ellis are just invaluable,” said Roy White, director of public relations for Heifer at its headquarters in Little Rock, Arkansas. 

“Thanks to the accountability, leadership and direction that our 30 public-spirited board members, such as Ellis give us,” White said, “Heifer grew from a $5 million organization in 1995 to a $56 million operation in 2002. And we are now moving into a new ‘green’ headquarters building designed to demonstrate the responsible use of resources.”

Ellis said he likes the way Heifer does not just walk into a place and announce that it has a plan and a project to help the people. Instead, local people must develop an idea of what they need and formally request Heifer’s help before it will step in. 

What’s more, Heifer insists the local committees that run the projects include women as well as men — a revolutionary concept in many parts of the world.

Projects at home too
While much of its work is in Third World countries, Heifer does not ignore the struggles of people in the states.

One example is a joint project with NY Cornell Cooperative Extension on a goat project in northern New York. 

One of eight projects Heifer International is currently sponsoring in New York, this one in St. Lawrence County is providing six goats to 10 families a year, for three years. Taking advantage of the goats’ unfinicky eating and digestive habits, the project will help the farmers restore large areas of formerly productive pastures that have become overgrown with brush, while also supplying the families with milk, meat, fiber and income.

“It usually takes nine to 12 months to educate people and help them prepare to receive the animals,” Ellis said. 

“In many areas farmers have no proper source of fertilizer, so we teach them how to use the animals’ manure. In Myanmar, manure helped farmers double or even triple their production in just two years.”

Some animals also can be used to plow land and harvest crops. 

Small starts, big results
“Just one animal can make a big difference. I met a man in Southeast Asia who had been able to farm just one acre of land each year. But with the help of a water buffalo from Heifer, he was able to farm 40 acres.”

“It’s neat to see agencies working together. We work with many other organizations, such as  Bread for the World, Vista, Habitat for Humanity and the Peace Corps,” Ellis said. 
Such a joint effort led to one of his greatest honors, he said.

In 2001, he was invited by a community of refugees in northern Thailand to dedicate the completion of a joint water project that involved many groups. 

“The villagers had fled to Thailand from Myanmar about 17 years earlier. They had to carry water five miles for 120 people every day. In 1997, they asked Heifer for pigs and chickens, but our Thai staff worried that having the animals would just force the villagers to carry more water. 

“The mayor of the village assured us, ‘We were forced to carry arms for the Burmese government over the mountains there. We can do this for ourselves now.’ ”

The villagers got their pigs and chickens. Then, the king of Thailand piped water through the mountains to within about 400 feet of the village. 

The little community of refugees constructed a cistern with money earned from their pigs and chickens. Neighboring villages donated excess pipe and with a grant from Heifer and a local Thai Rotary Club water was piped throughout the village.

“It was amazing to see people starting with a few pigs and chickens create so much,” Ellis said. “So many people of so many different faiths focused on a problem and solved it together.”

Keep it growing
“I went to Uganda with a Bread for the World group to find out what works for development in Africa,” Ellis said. “I found a group of widows who had worked through their YWCA and Heifer to get cows. They were able to feed their children and even sell milk to other families. 

“One widow was caring for her own two children and four nieces and nephews who are AIDS orphans. She not only improved their nutrition, she earned enough money from milk sales to buy a two-room home for them. Her cow’s first two calves were bulls, and she was eager to get a heifer calf that she could give to another family.

“It’s very moving to see how people who have nothing are so happy to be able to help others by passing on one of their animals. 

“For me,” Ellis added, “I can’t ask for anything better in life.”
“Dorothy has not only been active as a state employee and PEF member, but within her community as well,” Flateau said. “Whatever job she has, she takes it seriously and she does it well. She has been a good role model for the people she has tried to help.”

Grant began her civil service career in 1966 as a grade 3 typist at the Long Island City office of the state Labor Department. Since then, she has worked hard and been promoted many times. Currently, she is an employment services representative, grade 18, at the Harlem office, where she also is the PEF member mobilizer for her co-workers.

Communicator Homepage April 04

Inside This Issue
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Contract rally sizzles
Rally activists speak their minds
PEF weighing its options
Keep Fulton Corrections open
Camp McGregor’s fate depends...
Lawmakers save Middletown Psych
PEF helps elect Fields to office
Changing the world, one cow at a time

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Nurses' Station
Retirees In Action
Members' Highlights
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Union halts layoffs at OCF
Judge backs nurses right to back pay
Member keeps lifesaving blood flowing
Deadline nears for OT meal allowance
PEF sending first heroes into national...
Labor community helps state workers
Grant walks the walk
Reg. 1 member running to retire
Candidates sought for E. Board
Join PEF Hispanic Committee at Somos
2004 Convention Delegate Info

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