Category: Our Stories

Rebecka is a farmer and mother of five from Boti in Ghana. Rebecka has become an entrepreneur thanks to her partnership with The Hunger Project.

Rebecka participated in the microfinance program implemented in her community by The Hunger Project. Thanks to this program, she was able to take out four different microfinance loans.

With the money from the first loan of 100 cedis (the local currency equivalent to about AUD$22), she took it and invested it in her agriculture farming business. She made a small profit and repaid the loan back quickly.

For her other microfinance loans, she was able to buy a motorcycle which she now leases to people in her community. Motorcycles are useful for transport in rural communities and leasing them out allows her to pay off the loans and make some money on the side.

“It’s a big encouragement for me to have my own business. I feel proud to be self-employed and not work for somebody else,” Rebecka said.

Thanks to the money she’s now earning from her business she can afford to send her children to school. Rebecka has lifted her family out of hunger and with her children attending school they too are keeping themselves out of the cycle of hunger. Her husband has even decided to take part in some of The Hunger Project’s training programs, but she asserts that she is financially independent.

“My husband helps me with my business, but I take care of the money. My money is my money. 

 “I like to be employed by myself, I’m proud of my company,” she said.

Rebecka has bigger dreams and a wider vision for her business. She would like to expand her business in the future to a bigger farm, reaching more communities and she wants to partner with The Hunger Project as she does it.

“When I have paid off the latest loan, I want to take out another microfinance loan, with the lessons I learnt from The Hunger Project, so I can buy more pots.”

“My plans now are to expand the business so that I can move from the family farm and build my own house with my husband and our children,” she said.  

Inspired by Rebecka’s story? Partner with us today and empower more women like Rebecka so they too can start their own businesses and lift themselves and their families out of hunger.

 

 

Abraham is a farmer and father of 8 children from rural Ghana. His children can’t go to school because they need to work on the family farm so they can produce enough crops to sell. This is not the life Abraham wants for his children.

Abraham’s vision was to make a future for his children. After partnering with The Hunger Project he was able to make his vision a reality.

On the farm the family grows corn, cassava, coconut and other vegetables, selling what they can at market. Abraham went to a workshop run by The Hunger Project and he learnt the importance of diversifying the crops he grows.

The THP workshop also taught Abraham about the benefits of microfinance loans, so he took one out at the local Hunger Project Epicentre.

Using the new skills he learnt at the THP workshop, Abraham has been able to grow his crop yield beyond belief. He now has enough money that he can employ people to work on his farm, and his children can finally go to school.

Abraham has made his vision come to life and he has been able to make a future for his children.

“I want my children to decide their own future for themselves. I wasn’t that privileged, I want it better for my children,” Abraham said.

Donate now to changemakers like Abraham so they can make their vision for the future a reality.

“I got confidence from [my training with] The Hunger Project and stopped my early marriage.” — Hira, Year 10, Bangladesh.

The Hunger Project runs programs such as ‘Safe Schools for Girls’ in rural Bangladesh. In Bangladesh, two thirds of girls are married off before their 18th birthday, and 1 in 5 are married off before the age of 15. This means girls are constantly vulnerable to being married off before they’re ready. 

One day out of nowhere, Hira’s relatives arranged her marriage to an unemployed boy. As part of The Hunger Project’s ‘Safe Schools for Girls’ program, reproductive health training had been conducted at her school. From this training, Hira learnt about the harmful consequences of child marriage, including the dangers of getting pregnant before the body is fully developed. In addition, The Hunger Project had shown many short educational movies in her school. One particular movie called “Kusum’s Autobiography” left a deep impression, as she saw in the movie how child marriage destroys the life of a teenager – essentially forcing them overnight to stop being a girl and become a wife and mother. She knew that if she were married off before the legal age of 18, then her life could end up like that too.  

With this knowledge, Hira enlisted the help of the other girls and boys in The Hunger Project’s Youth Unit – a group of school students who actively work to stop child marriage for the girls at their school. Together, they explained the negative consequences to her family members and were successfully able to convince them to call off the marriage. 

It doesn’t have to be like this. You could donate today so that even more girls can access this program and end child marriage.