Pigs for Peace
With the help of pigs, Nancy Glass gives Congolese women economic security
WorldView, the Peace Corps magazine, Summer 2010

How can Nancy Glass, PhD, MPH, RN, help Congolese women recover from the violence, rape, and displacement from their homes and families that they have endured during their country’s civil war? She wants to start by giving them hope, empowerment, economic security – and a pig.

Glass first began working with the Congolese as a young Peace Corps volunteer in a rural hospital in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (then Zaire) from 1990-1991. This experience inspired her career. “The reason I became a nurse is because I worked with nurses there,” she says. “I realized all the things that nurses could do based on working with my colleagues.”

She read about the Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing’s Accelerated Baccalaureate program – a 13-month curriculum for students who already have bachelor’s degrees – in the Peace Corps newsletter. Glass attended in 1993-1994 and went on to receive master’s degrees in both Nursing and Public Health from Johns Hopkins and a PhD in Nursing from the University of Maryland, Baltimore.

Her Peace Corps experience informs her work daily. As the Associate Professor in the Department of Community Health at the Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing, Glass teaches a global health elective to undergraduate nursing students, many of whom are returning Peace Corps volunteers. She is also an Associate Director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Global Health, an agency that addresses international health challenges like malnutrition and HIV/AIDS.

Glass’ work in the U.S. has focused on victims of violence so it’s no surprise that she feels a pull to help Congolese women. After spending two years talking to the country’s rape victims, Glass and her colleagues learned that they just wanted to rebuild their lives. “Everyone said that, over and over again… [But] they needed the economic resources to do that,” Glass says. “Raped women in any society are isolated. But when they have wealth, the rape becomes less important. They’re a productive member of the community.”

To provide those economic resources, Glass started the microfinance program Pigs for Peace in 2008 with the nonprofit Great Lakes Restoration, an organization founded by local Congolese Matthias Cinyabuguma, PhD. “We work with women who are in their villages and want to stay in their villages,” says Glass. “[And] in rural Africa, survival is agriculture and your animals.”

Enter the pig. Pigs for Peace began by loaning four pigs to four Congolese families. The pigs breed twice a year and the piglets can be used for meat or sold for about $40 at the market per animal – a good return for the average Congolese woman who makes $89 a year. “They use the money to get their kids back in school and buy clothing,” Glass explains. “One woman built a house; another woman is going to start a business selling shoes in the market. They become very creative in how they use their pigs for the future.”

Unlike traditional microfinance programs, Pigs for Peace does not require cash as repayment for a pig. Instead, the first four families gave two piglets back to the program, one from each of their first two litters. The piglets were loaned to other women in the village, who also repaid their loans with two piglets. This system has helped Pigs for Peace grow exponentially – to date, 110 families have received pigs.

Pigs for Peace also recently loaned five pigs to a nun who runs an orphanage for 30 Congolese children, many of whom are rape victims. The money she receives from the pigs will be used to pay the children’s school fees and to buy food until they are reintegrated into their families. “It will also be an education for the kids,” says Glass. “They’ll have a skill and know about pigs and how to raise them.”

But why did Glass choose pigs instead of other animals common to the Congolese culture, like cows and goats?

Glass explains that these animals are typically associated with wealth and, thus, controlled by men. “[But] women can be the proprietors of the pig,” she says. “They’ve been raising pigs for generations.” Pigs are also relatively easy to manage: they live on a small area of land, they eat everything, and women can take care of them with limited training.

But there is a downside: women have to wait several months before their pig has its first litter. “In that time, the woman has to be able to feed and manage the pig,” says Glass. “That’s not easy for families who are struggling.”

To provide additional support in the beginning, as well as throughout the process, each village has an association – “kind of like a solidarity group,” Glass says. Women learn practicalities like how to build a pig pen and what to feed their pigs, but they also share advice with each other about raising and managing their animals.

Although the program has had a successful first year, Pigs for Peace still needs to grow tremendously to provide pigs for the 700 families on its waitlist, and for Glass to implement her plans to expand the program. (She wants to open a butchery where women can make and sell sausage in the region’s largest city.)

The good news is that it doesn’t take much money to purchase a pig: with a $50 donation, Pigs for Peace can loan one pig to a family, and provide a pen, veterinary care, some food, and education about pig farming. “One pig in six months is going to be six piglets,” says Glass. “That $50 has an impact.”

It will also help build a program that has a lasting effect. “People say ‘Oh, you’re not serving 10,000 people like other organizations’ and that’s true…but we’re building projects that are sustainable,” Glass says. ““We’re trying to do it village by village and then we let the village take over.”