Spreading Awareness Of Our Sh*t...

We entered a contest this past summer, to garner some attention for TSSH. Out of more than 350 entries

we were one of 4 finalists!

While we didn't win, thousands of people around the world had a chance to read about us. The feedback was awesome.

MEET RITA RAYMAN—G PROJECT FINALIST
by DANIEL SENDECKI SEPTEMBER 10, 2013     

This week, the Looptail is coming to you live from outside the gates of Costa Rica’s Parque Nacional Manuel Antonio from our first-ever Summit in the Jungle.

Rita and other finalists with G Adventures founder Bruce Poon Tip

Each day, we’re profiling a different visionary whose world-changing ideas earned them one of four spots at the Summit — and a shot at winning $25,000 to fund their vision. Today, we’re proud to introduce Canada’s Rita Rayman.

Rita pitches her Shit

G Project Finalist Rita Rayman, Toronto
The Shit Starts Here

This program has already affected the lives of more than 30,000 people through providing sheep and goats to farmers in Africa. Theye provide sheep to co-operatives of subsistence farmers in order to compost the manure into fertilizer, which in turn increases crop yields. In addition, as the sheep reproduce, excess sheep can be sold for income and life advancement such as health care, educational needs and home improvement. 

Additionally, a stable community helps to guarantee the protection and conservation of nearby parks, forests and wildlife, including mountain gorillas, chimpanzees and other endangered primates. If there is enough food on the table and money to buy cooking fuel, there is no need to go poaching. Potential also exists for other income-generating activities such as milk, cheese, wool, and felt production.
Working with established cooperatives, they provide each farmer with a female sheep as well as males for studding. 
Once the farmer has his quota of females, he returns the next sheep to the project, which is then passed on to a farmer in another cooperative.


It’s like micro-finance, but the currency is sheep, and the loan is interest-free.


They carefully track the number of members we’re working with, as well as the number of sheep being delivered and the subsequent births.
As they gave the initial farmers the benefit of opportunity, so those farmers are now turning around and giving that same opportunity to other members of their community, in other cooperatives, lifting as they rise. 
The cycle perpetuates itself as Rita and Jeff continue to provide new sheep to new cooperatives in addition to those being passed on by previous cooperatives.
"Ours is a love story that’s full of shit"
a simple, transparent, scalable, sustainable community-building, income-generating, conservation initiative that fosters dignity and independence. 

Having already established themselves in Rwanda, Northern Uganda and Bhutan, and knowing that the concept works, they are focusing on moving into Eastern Congo, as well as hoping to establish initiatives in India, Southeast Asia and South America.

Behind the idea: Rita Rayman
Born and living in Toronto, Canada, Rita Rayman has more than 20 years of travel under her belt, “exploring most of this awesome, precious planet and the wondrous variety of people who call it home”. Along with her husband Jeff, she’s also taken notice of the suffering of both the people and the planet, and was moved moved to do something about it on a grassroots level.

Writes Rita:
We wanted to avoid the political and social corruption, as well as the administrative corruption and overhead that we had seen cripple the best efforts of so many seemingly worthy projects in so many different countries. We also wanted to avoid the inflated egos and saviour complexes that arise in so many NGO groups we had encountered. In an age of chaos and change, we recognize that there is no ‘other’. There is only ‘us’—a global family.

Having been long-time fundraisers, volunteers and activists, comfortable on ‘the road less traveled’, and semi-retired empty-nesters, Rita and Jeff founded The Guardian Project foundation, with a mission to facilitate opportunity through direct, grassroots interaction with indigenous peoples, working with them in their journey to self-sustaining independence, and encouraging them to be pro-active participants in community and country. They place special emphasis on the importance of women, as they are the backbone of a healthy functioning social structure. In their work, they “utilize local wisdom and resources rather than relying on western notions and should-isms”.