Category: Our Stories

Ndeye lives in a village called Kane’ene Khar, near the Coki Epicentre in Senegal – where she was trained as a volunteer by The Hunger Project.

Before her training, she said there was no way she would have spoken in front of a group of people to talk about the issues affecting her and the wider community.  Before Ndeye’s training, she couldn’t even envision a life free from hunger and poverty.  That’s all changed now!

Ndeye is confident there is a better life available to all and is determined to share everything she’s learned with her community. After she learned to read and write, a brand new world opened up to her. Her new literacy skills allowed her to take an opportunity to become a teacher, earning her an income and enabling her to support herself and her family.  She is able to send her children to school and has upgraded from a tin house – where they slept on a mattress on the floor – to a brick house – where they sleep on a large ornate wooden bed (she is very proud!).  She has visions of her children having a future free from the cultural practices that held her back in earlier life – like child marriage and lack of education.

As Ndeye’s standard of living began to improve, so did her vision of the future for her community.  She developed a desire to create change on a greater scale and with the support of her family, she has been able to become more involved in the programs at the Epicentre.  Her family understands that she has the opportunity to contribute to the wider community and empower others living in hunger.

She says “Many years ago it was not possible to find any women in my village who were literate… Now because of The Hunger Project we can read, write and even text!’.  In 5 years, she hopes to be a big trader and to be invited into communities everywhere to deliver training sessions that will help transform people’s beliefs and their lives.

Alawatu is a midwife in her local health clinic in Bofel village near the Coki Epicentre, Senegal.

Before The Hunger Project health clinic was established in Bofel, Alawatu had to deliver babies in people’s homes with no medical facilities or specialty care available to help her. Many women and babies died as a result. The health clinic has resulted in a dramatic drop in maternal deaths, to the point they have almost been eliminated completely!

Alawatu now provides prenatal care to women in the clinic. When they’re ready to give birth, she then travels with them – by horse and cart – to the nearest hospital. If they go into labour on the journey, she is able to assist them in the delivery of their baby. When they arrive at the hospital they receive any extra medical care they need in order to keep themselves and their babies healthy.

After the women have given birth, Alawatu takes them back to the clinic in Boffel where she cares for them until they are ready to go home. The new mothers and babies get a check-up visit every Monday by staff from the clinic and The Hunger Project organises community discussions, cooking demonstrations and talks on various health, sanitation and hygiene issues.

 

For many years Bienvenu and his wife Justine have been farming chickens, turkeys and rabbits.  After attending workshops at Zakpota Epicentre in Benin, they learned how to expand their business.  They have applied for credit from the bank and have since purchased more poultry and the necessary food to provide for their livestock.

“I already knew everything about poultry farming,’ says Bienvenu, ‘but my workshops in the Epicentre in Zakpota increased my knowledge in that area. So now, I know even better what my chickens and other animals need to stay healthy. I also learned to read, write and do my own bookkeeping. I know what my company is about and through my improved understanding of accounting, I am better able to grow with it.”

Bienvenu has bought a larger farm and he has built barns to keep more chickens.  He has two permanent employees and hires casual staff when he needs help with the construction of his barns. He is already thinking about expanding further, so he can save money by growing food for his livestock himself.

“I need 500,000 cfa (approx. $1,175AUD) of credit per year, especially for the feed of my poultry. If I can grow that food myself, I’m one step further. I now earn a net of 2.1 million CFA (approx. $4,940 AUD) per year. I make the most of my profits during the holidays when people come to buy chickens and turkeys. I sell the eggs throughout the year… It is my goal to eventually become so big that I can deliver to catering. “

I make sure my animals have enough space in the barns so that they stay healthy and I can continue to deliver quality. I now have 5,000 birds (including 3,500 chickens, 250 turkeys, 1,000 guinea fowl, 250 ducks and 100 rabbits. In the future, I want to grow to at least 12,000 poultry. “ Bienvenu’s extraordinary vision and business skills have earned him awards and visits from local politicians. He hopes to attract more visitors to the region through his work, and thus stimulate more economic activities.

People in his community are inspired by his abilities and subsequent success.  He is a big thinker who likes to share the knowledge and skills he learned with other farmers in his village.  He employs young people on internships and is happy that others are benefitting from his success.

Emilienne is from a small village in Benin; one of the poorest countries in the world, where more than half of the population live on less than $1.90 per day. Debilitating hunger is widespread.

Emilienne didn’t go to school – her parents couldn’t afford the fees and they needed her to work on the family farm. Like many of her friends, she never learned to read or write. Before The Hunger Project came to her village, life was incredibly hard for Emilienne.

“I was working on the land. My earnings weren’t enough to feed my children.” Her children were malnourished. Every day was a struggle to survive and the future looked no different. “Saving money wasn’t possible. The thought of it didn’t even cross my mind.”

When we last visited Emilienne earlier this year, she was full of joy as she proudly showed us her thriving peanut cookie business. The eight women she employs were busy grilling peanuts, treating the peanut dough and frying cookies.

Emilienne was given an opportunity to change her life through The Hunger Project’s programs in her village. She received business skills training, literacy and numeracy education as well as a microfinance loan.

“I learned how to draw up a business plan and the importance of saving.”

She used the loan and skills she learned to start the peanut cookie business. Today, business is booming.

“I’m still applying the knowledge I gained in The Hunger Project’s entrepreneurship workshops” she says.

She has increased production and invested in new machinery to improve efficiency. When she first started, Emilienne was selling a small number of peanut cookies at the local markets.

“Now, I sell cookies in large quantities to other women who sell them individually. I also process 10 bags of 105 kg of peanuts a week, from which I make 5 large baskets of peanut butter and 250 litres of peanut oil.”

Emilienne is also determined to help others.

“I am a volunteer for the agricultural bank and I run leadership training in my community. I like to be active in my village. My children now attend school.”

Empower women like Emilienne today. 

Laurinda is a resident of Djodjo village at Chokwe Epicentre in Mozambique. She has one daughter and has been involved with The Hunger Project since 2006. She joined The Hunger Project community during her first Vision, Commitment and Action workshop in her community.

Since then, Laurinda has moved into leadership roles in the community, serving as the head of the microcredit bank where she was in charge of distributing loans. She has also taken on the task of being a leader at the Epicentre’s Water and Environmental Sanitation program.  She even served as a board member of the Rural Bank in Chokwe.

Laurinda says The Hunger Project’s programs have helped her empower her community to become sustainable. She has benefited from the Agriculture Loan Revolving Fund where local farmers access seed and fertilizer loans at the start of the planting season. She uses the fund to produce corn, beans and vegetables at the association’s farm.

Using skills she learnt from The Hunger Project’s environmental sustainability workshops she reconnected to the land, discovering the importance of things she already knew deep down. At the workshop, she was taught the importance of diversifying crops, why combating erosion is important and the use of fertilisers to return nutrients to the earth.

“We grow a lot in the soil so it is important to look after our Earth,” Laurinda says.

The income from her agricultural activity has made significant improvements in her life. With the first credit she received, she bought a cow. Six years later she now has five cows that she uses for plowing in her business.

Laurinda also sees the benefits of the Epicentre’s health centre, which helps keep farmers healthy and thereby increases productivity. She still recognises several challenges, such as a lack of transportation methods. As a result, she is striving to help her community acquire bicycles to facilitate carrying out mobilization activities, and a truck to carry products from the farm to market.

Gladys came to the attention of The Hunger Project when our volunteers visited her school to talk to girls about the harmful impact of child marriage. She stood out from her friends because she was the only child amongst them who had been married, divorced, given birth to a baby and returned to school.

As a young girl, Gladys was told by her father that she was too old to go to school any longer and that she must marry. He brought home a male suitor, who brought food and gifts with him. Gladys was taken off to church to marry this man she had never before met. She was only a teenager.

“I really tried to live with that man, but it didn’t work. I didn’t even have soap to wash myself! After three months I walked back to my parents’ house and said: sorry, I can’t be his wife anymore.”

Gladys was breaking all the norms of the cultural practices within her Ugandan village. Still, her mother was able to convince her husband to welcome her back into their home – under the condition that she would provide food for herself. Although they discovered soon after that Gladys was pregnant, she stuck to their conditions and returned to school so that one day she would be able to make an independent living.

The school was close to her home, but it was very difficult for her to return, as there were no other pregnant girls there. She didn’t have enough money saved to pay for her schooling either, so she courageously sought the support of her principal. It was the first time in his career that he had been approached by a pregnant girl asking for help to finish school – he promised to help her.

Six months after her baby Samuel was born, Gladys returned to school again, where she came into contact with The Hunger Project for the first time. Our volunteers were giving a talk to empower the girls to understand the dangers of child marriage and to take a stand against the harmful practice. They soon learned about Gladys’ courageous and inspiring story and began to work with her to help other girls realise the possibilities available to them.

In the village where Gladys lives, arranged marriages for young girls are still very common and child brides are not usually given the opportunity to continue their education – especially after having children.

“It’s common that parents marry off their daughters at such a young age, but it shouldn’t be normal. That’s what I like to tell other girls. It is very difficult to deliver a baby and go back to school afterwards. I have to walk a long distance and I don’t know what it will bring. But it is possible. That’s what I like to demonstrate.”

Gladys now shares her story with others and has become an inspiring example to the girls in her village.

These days, Guiré finds herself busy running a successful restaurant and providing for her five children. In 2013, before Guiré began participating in the Microfinance program at the Boulkon Epicentre in Burkina Faso, her restaurant was just a small shop serving rice, soup and beans in the village market. Since obtaining a 50,000 CFA franc loan and attending workshops, Guiré has been able to grow her business and become “a great restaurant owner in this market.”

Guiré lives in Koussago village, in the Kirsi commune in central Burkina Faso. Her husband works as a farmer while two of her children attend secondary school and three are in primary school.

With the microfinance loan, Guiré was able to purchase and cook more food to sell every day, increasing her client base and her profits. She was also able to purchase a bicycle to save time on her commute, pay for school fees, and purchase school supplies and clothing for her children. She is able to purchase medicine, condiments and cereal to improve the health and nutrition of her family.

After just one year, Guiré grew her business enough to pay back her original loan and accrued interest. She hopes to continue expanding her restaurant business and contributing to her family’s health and education.

Post courtesy of The Hunger Project Global Office.

Climate change poses a serious threat, especially to people living in rural communities. Our work across Africa and South Asia places great importance on empowering our partners to build long-lasting resilience to climate change and the shocks caused by it.

Shehubo lives in an Ethiopian village near The Hunger Project’s Wurib Epicentre — a community-led partnership that empowers 20 villages to lead their own development strategies on the path to sustainable self-reliance. Shehubo’s and the surrounding villages experienced extreme winds and flooding during recent years’ rainy seasons. Many families lost their homes and crop fields, which were the main source of income on which their livelihoods depended. Fortunately, she and her ten children are one of the few families that survived and rebounded from the damage caused by the heavy rains, whirlwinds and flooding.

Shehubo understands that access to financial tools can make a difference when it comes to building resilience against extreme weather.

Until two years ago, Shehubo and her children had been living in a grass-thatched hut, exposed to damages by recurrent winds and heavy rains. But then she started participating in Epicentre’s credit and savings program, saving enough money to build a more durable home for her family just in time for the rainy season.

Today, she manages programs that address food security, nutrition, health, education, microfinance, water and sanitation. Her success is an inspiration to fellow women and youth to be the leaders of their own development.

While incredible, Shehubo’s story is not unique. Extreme weather induced by climate change has become increasingly common around the world. Investing in rural and sustainable development is critical in preventing the damage caused by natural disasters and in building resilience once it strikes. Shehubo shows that mobilizing communities at the grassroots level can make a positive impact on us all.

Post courtesy of The Hunger Project Global Office.

Aby lives in Badar Gueye, Senegal together with her five children and husband, and is an active member of The Hunger Project’s Diokoul Epicentre. After completing middle school, she attended literacy classes for two more years before becoming the main point of contact for all monitoring and evaluation activities in the village committee. Today, she is a champion of her community’s development. Her strength and perseverance have seen her take on many leadership roles, including becoming the Vice President of the Diokoul Epicentre Committee during the Epicentre restructuring process in 2013.

Aby believes development happens when girls, youth and women are engaged and empowered to take ownership of their own change. A woman of action, Aby has become a key driver of awareness-generating activities and an advocate for the challenges faced by women in her community.

As a community leader, Aby pioneered principles of microfinance in her Epicentre. By adopting a “savings before credit” approach, in just one year, Aby was able to raise more than 200,000 CFRA Francs to begin a special savings fund for her village. The fund is a village savings and credit account that supports 42 village women, offering loans for anywhere between 10,000 and 20,000 CFA Francs per person. These loans are used to grow the community’s income-generating activities, such as embroidery and petty trading.

Aby knows that empowered women benefit their entire society. She too generates income through petty trade activities. By buying vegetables from farmers and selling them in her village markets, she is able to provide clothing and schooling for her five children. Her impact is acknowledged by the wider community; the Epicentre Committee President describes Aby as a “dynamic person, committed to the development of her village and the Epicentre.”

Post courtesy of The Hunger Project Global Office

“Poverty in our village was at an extremely high level, so when I heard that The Hunger Project-Mozambique aimed to empower the community to alleviate poverty, I decided to join the program without any hesitation.” Moises lives with his family in the 25 de Setembro village, in the Chokwe Epicentre of Mozambique.

In 2006, his village saw very high levels of poverty, so Moises joined The Hunger Project-Mozambique after the first community mobilization workshop. Over the past 10 years, he has participated as an animator, a microfinance partner, and a literacy student.

In 2008, his training as an animator enabled him to receive loans from the Microfinance program. With these loans, he expanded his small business and farm, taking care of his family by providing for the education of his children.

Then in 2012, Moises joined training teaching improved barn-building techniques and the manufacturing of stoves that use less firewood. Two years later, he attended workshops on constructing rainwater harvesting and conservation systems. His desire for self-improvement has seen him contribute to the social and economic well-being of his village.

Now Moises is also sharing many of his newly learned skills in manufacturing handcrafted goods by leading training workshops himself!

Looking back on the past 10 years, Moises has a deep appreciation of the presence and support offered by The Hunger Project-Mozambique to his village. At the same time, he recognizes that there are many other communities across the country that haven’t been reached yet.

“I hope to see those communities receive the same opportunities as we did,” Moises says.

Moises trains animators in handcrafts.

Post courtesy of The Hunger Project Global Office.