Beatrice's Goat Fed A Dream

When we stop and think about the forces that have helped shape our lives, many of us can recall a loving parent or a caring teacher, or someone else who encouraged and inspired us and made us what we are today.

But how many of us can look back and say, "I owe it all to a goat"?

A young African woman by the name of Beatrice Biira can. If it weren't for her goat, Beatrice wouldn't have gone to school, wouldn't have been lifted out of poverty, and wouldn't have won a scholarship to a college in America.

There are lots of terrible stories coming out of Africa these days, stories about war and tyranny and starvation. This is not one of them. Correspondent Bob Simon reports.

Beatrice's village, which is called Kisinga, sits nestled in a valley in the western part of Uganda. When most people hear of Uganda, they immediately think of Idi Amin, the strongman who brutalized the country for nearly a decade.

Amin's long gone, but Uganda, like most of Africa, is still plagued with problems. There are too many people, too few jobs, and not enough food.

Beatrice remembers being hungry as a child. "There wasn't much food in our fields. And if it was there, it was almost the same meal every other day. Like you eat cassava or sweet potatoes in the afternoon and in the evening. And, I must say that we were hungry," she says.

And yet, despite going hungry and not having much hope for the future, she later found herself on the campus of an exclusive American prep school. Last year, she was a student at Northfield Mt. Hermon, in northern Massachusetts.

How did she get there? How did she manage to pull off such an improbable journey? 60 Minutes traveled a long way to find out.

The equator runs right across the country road that leads to Beatrice's home. You can stand in both hemispheres. Beatrice's life has become something like that in the last few years. She's had one foot in the African bush, and the other in New England -- all because of a goat.

"It is through selling the goat's milk that I was able to [go to school]," says Beatrice, who owes her good fortune to a goat and a charity in Little Rock, Ark., called Heifer International.

Heifer International is known for its work distributing livestock to poor families all over the world.

In 1991, Heifer introduced 12 goats to 12 families in Kisinga. Beatrice's family was lucky enough to be among them.

Along with the goats, Heifer sent a cameraman to Kisinga to shoot film of young Beatrice's life. At 9, she was performing adult chores, and yearning desperately to attend school. But her family, one of the poorest in Kisinga, just couldn't afford it.

It seemed as though Beatrice would always be on the outside looking in. But she says she kept bugging her parents: "I was very impassioned. Want to go to school. I really wanted to go to school."

Enter her goat. The Heifer goats are bred to produce prodigious amounts of milk. After struggling for years just to feed her kids, Beatrice's mother was able to sell enough goat's milk to finally send Beatrice, then 10, to the local school.

From there, she won a scholarship to a high school in Kampala, Uganda's capital. Then, she went on to prep school in New England, where it turns out, her biggest adjustment was winter.

"[It was] ridiculously cold. It was really cold. Like negative 30 degrees," recalls Beatrice. "And 20 inches of snow. That has never occurred to me in my life."

But seasons change, and for the first time in her life, Beatrice learned how to play tennis. She might never make it to Wimbledon, but she's pretty smart and won an award for general excellence. Not bad for a kid who grew up with her parents and seven brothers and sisters in a tin-roofed shack in Africa, with an outhouse nearby.

Did the American kids have any idea where she was from? Or what kind of life she lived before going to school?

"No, they didn't know. Most of them actually look at me and maybe thought I was African-American. So, I started to tell them my story. I didn't tell all of it, but I told them I grew up in a very, very poor village. And, I'm trying to transition from that kind of life to this one," says Beatrice.

"They were very good. But most of them were amazed, really amazed at my story."

Beatrice took 60 Minutes to her old school, the one she couldn't afford to attend until that goat came into her life. She says the school hasn't changed much since she went there.

In fact, it looks as though it hasn't changed in a century. There are hardly any books or pencils. And they still teach kids how to weave straw mats. It's a skill that Beatrice is still pretty good at. But then again, she was a natural at everything in school.

She says it didn't take long for her to catch up with other kids her age. "I was very eager to go to school," recalls Beatrice. "Even when I got there, I made sure that I did extra work, extra homework, extra help, how to read, how to write. And I made it pretty quick."

Beatrice made it all the way to Connecticut College on a scholarship.

Having tasted the good life at prep school in America, Beatrice remains grateful, but not seduced. Despite her success in this country, she says she'll never abandon Africa.

"There's so much poverty here. There's AIDS. There are so many wars. And you're in a position to escape it. Do you want to escape it," asks Simon. "To escape all the hardship of Africa?"

"I'm not trying to run away from all of these hardships," says Beatrice. "What I'm talking about is having the necessary things that you would need to live comfortably and survive. That's what matters to me."

In Beatrice's world, goats are for sharing. You get a goat, and you share your goat's offspring with one of your neighbors. It's done in a ritual called "Passing on the Gift."

60 Minutes witnessed that ritual in Kisinga. The descendants of Heifer's original 12 goats were being passed from families lucky enough to have had them to other families in desperate need.

Once, Beatrice was on the receiving end of this charity, and she's not about to forget it. What is her dream 10 years from now?

"I would love to see myself forming maybe a school for children who are disadvantaged," says Beatrice.

"Or maybe an orphanage, and maybe a farm with cows or goats, and giving those children milk. And I'd love to see them get healthier, all by my work."

With all the money donated to help fight famine around the world, with all the grandiose plans conceived to conquer poverty, sometimes all it takes to save a child is a goat. If you don't believe that, come to Kisinga.