Gospel for Asia, a missionary organisation operating in India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Myanmar and Nepal is behind the initiative. Potential donors can pick their gift on the group's website, whether it is chickens, goats, buffaloes, sewing machines, Bibles, literacy training and wells.

Mumbai (AsiaNews/Agencies) - Forget about Christmas presents! This year you can help the poor and needy by giving them a chicken, a goat or a sewing machine.  Gospel for Asia, a Protestant missionary organisation operating in India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Myanmar and Nepal, is behind the initiative. Called 'Forgotten Christmas,' the project is designed to give useful gifts to families in difficulty, mostly Dalits. Donors can pick their gift on the group's website and send the money to purchase it.

A pair of chickens can be purchased for US$ 11 and will provide a family some 200-300 eggs per year as well as hatchlings for food or sale. A goat that goes for US$ 70 will produce nutritious milk and one offspring per year. With US$ 460, donors can offer a buffalo that provides milk and can be used to move loads or plough the land.

A US$ 85 sewing machine can change a woman's life, taking her off the streets to starting her own small business and supporting her family.

Through 'Forgotten Christmas,' donors can buy water purification systems (US$ 30), dig wells (US$ 1,000), donate Bibles (seven copies for US$ 21) and fund women's literacy programmes (US$ 25). Last but not least, for US$ 420, a Dalit child can go to school for a year.

"Even as the West is caught up in Black Friday, shopping malls and long lines at cash registers, millions of people are struggling to provide the bare necessities of food, clean water and shelter for their families," said K. P. Yohannan, founder and president of Gospel for Asia. "Forgotten Christmas is one way to supply the needs of the most impoverished while rediscovering the true joy of Christmas."

What is more, "The priceless gift of Immanuel, God with us, reminds us how to give to those who need it most," Yohannan noted. "Now is the time to remember the persecuted believers, those who have never heard the gospel and those who have newly welcomed it in other parts of the world."

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