Camel Kit ($50)

Across arid regions of Asia and Africa, families use camels to provide nutritious milk, harvest their crops and carry their goods — and themselves — to local markets. For many families, camels represent the entirety of their household assets. So they're worth protecting. Mercy Corps helps herders preserve their way of life and continue to build an asset base for their families.

Why Help Is Needed

Camels are vital to the livelihoods of families in many countries. The animals are used to prepare fields, harvest crops and take people and products to market. When drought and disease hit a region and camels sicken or die, their loss strikes a devastating blow to local populations.

Mercy Corps In Action

Mercy Corps helps poor, often-marginalized farmers preserve their livelihoods and support their families by providing better health care for their valuable camels. Our Camel Kit provides vaccinations and veterinary care to protect five camels against deadly livestock diseases. Healthy camels enable families to preserve important traditions and carry on necessary daily farm work like plowing fields and getting crops to market.

Surenjav's Story

It's not easy to become a master herder in Mongolia. After all, this is a place where the herding and care of animals isn't only a centuries-old tradition, but also critical to family health, income and survival.

So it's doubly impressive that Surenjav, a young woman, became a master herder in charge of more than 2,000 livestock — including 250 camels — at just 29 years old. How did she do it?

"I've known how to work with camels since I was a child," she said. "My experience with herding helped me run our group of herding families more efficiently. Visits from veterinarians help keep our herd healthy. Trainings from Mercy Corps have helped me to better organize and manage our business."

Surenjav's herding cooperative sells fresh camel milk, cheese and wool all over the area, as well as providing breeding stock for other herding families. Part of the milk is donated to a local school as part of a lunch program. They have won many regional awards for their herd — including "best breed" and "best baby camel" — and hang the medals proudly from the poles of their ger, or traditional dwelling.

Surenjav is grateful to have Mercy Corps supporting her growing group of herders, but her most trusted advisor is her 98-year-old grandmother, who still gets out to milk the camels. And so the tradition not only passes on, but strengthens and grows.

Camel Kit ($50)
Buy this card ›

Purchase of a Mercy Kit is a symbolic gift that supports Mercy Corps' worldwide programs to help children and families in need. The Breastfeeding Kit, Climate Change Kit, Fuel-Efficient Stove Kit, Cricket Farm Kit, Send an Orphan to School Kit, Plant a Tree Kit, Play to Heal Kit and Uganda Farm Kit supports those specific project funds. Proceeds from the sale of other Mercy Kits will be used where most needed.