SOCADIDO is the development and welfare arm of the Diocese of Soroti, eastern Uganda, an area that has had more than its fair share of conflict.

More than once during most of their lifetimes, the people have been forced to seek shelter in refugee camps. They have had to rebuild their shattered lives from scratch.

SOCADIDO has initiated and continues to support hundreds of village self-help groups. It is to women in these groups that the goats are given, or rather lent, for the first kid has to be passed to another family.

For people with nothing, a goat provides the bottom rung on the ladder out of poverty. Goats multiply quickly and soon begin to show returns. The families themselves decide how to spend the profits - it may be for medical fees, to buy land, build houses, start cottage industries - or to buy cows and ploughs.