Alpacas Magazine - 2010 Spring

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viduals in need, not the masses.
You will be introduced to each of
the boys and girls who make Casa
Chapi home. You will learn the
life stories of people who make
their way to our clinics, food
kitchens, and disaster relief lines.
Alpaca breeders outside of
South America have the means
to give. We live in some of the
most privileged societies on
earth. If the approximately
10,000 breeders living in
Europe, North America,
Australia, and New Zealand
simply contributed the cost of
a few bottled waters a week, or
a Starbucks or two, or maybe a
bottle of wine a week, each
breeder could contribute one
dollar per day and Quechua
Benefit would raise over
$350,000 per year or almost
double what we are currently
receiving annually. The addition-
al funds would do wonders.
I don’t mean to trivialize the
act of giving or suggest it does
not include sacrifice especially
in these challenging economic
times. My point is that we could
do a tremendous amount of
good without materially affecting
our quality of life.
I also don’t mean to suggest
that people from rich nations are
not already very generous. Most
developed countries give at least
11⁄2 % of their gross national
product. In the United States,
7 out of 10 families give to
charities. Wealthy men like
Warren Buffett recognize the
social advantage of living in a
prosperous country when he says
“If you stick me down in the
middle of Bangladesh or Peru
you’ll find out how much talent
is going to produce in the wrong
kind of soil.” He acknowledged
the moral obligation imposed by
his good fortune of being born
in the United States when he
pledged to donate his 37 billion
dollar fortune to charity.
Bill Gates read that 500,000
children die every year from
diarrhea caused by rotavirus,
which was something about
which he knew nothing. This led
him to create a 30 billion dollar
charitable foundation. If you go
to the Buffett-Gates website
), you
will find the following goal
prominently displayed: “All lives,
no matter where they are being
lived, have equal value.” His goal
is to literally save the world. But
I was struck by the need to make
sure that the Quechua people’s
lives are made important to the
people who we ask to contribute
funds to Quechua Benefit.
Maybe Gates and Buffett have
pondered the biblical admonish-
ment that it easier for a camel to
get through the eye of a needle
Spring 2010 89
Photos courtesy of Mike Safley
Mother Theresa said
“If I look at the masses,
I will never act; if I
look at one, I will.”