How Learning to Fish Lasts a Lifetime

José Rendolfo Seballos, 39, his wife Miriam Portillo, 40, and their six children live in the municipality of Copan, in western Honduras. The couple received the gift of a cow shortly after joining Heifer Honduras’s Vida Café Project in December 2014.

“I felt like it was a Christmas present,” José said. “I was very excited, because I wanted to start moving forward.”

The couple previously owned cows, yet had to sell the animals to purchase land.

After José received livestock and fish training from Heifer, Vida Café Project gifted him 1,200 fingerlings, or baby fish. Through hard work and determination, he and his family bought another 1,800 fingerlings for a total of 3,000.

The opportunity to be part of the Vida Café Project has served as a catalyst for José and his family to start a thriving business and to enjoy healthier lives as a result.

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The Seballos family owns two cows and two calves, which enables them to make as much as four pounds of curd daily. Two pounds are kept for their family, while the others are locally sold for $1.13 per pound. The family also sells whole milk for 45 cents per bottle. The family has sold 1,141 pounds of fish for $1,636.

“Even though I owned fish before joining Vida Café Project, I feel the assistance given to us by the Heifer has been the best part,” José said. “We think this is a success. The organization is the best thing we can have to move forward, because one does not do it by oneself.”

Through his participation in the Heifer project, José is able to stay in an organized group called the CAFEL Cooperative, which allows him to receive continuous training to improve his processes and yield a higher income.

The Seballos family is a living example of the saying “Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.”

Post authored by Bianca Solórzano with Heifer Honduras.