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…

Abraham Narh 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…

Originally published by The Hunger Project Nederland.  Cheikh Diouf from Ndié has been a member of the grain bank at Ndereppe Epicentre, Senegal, since the start of 2006. He has also become a member of the newly established farmers’ association. This has enabled him to provide his family with enough food. “I have learnt and…

Sipho is from The Hunger Project’s Kachindamoto Epicentre community, Malawi where he lives with his wife and 5 children. In 2015 Sipho received his first farm input loan from The Hunger Project. The then participated in agriculture training through programs available at the Kachindamoto Epicentre. From this training Sipho was able to harvest 50 bags…

Amina used to live in chronic hunger. She could not see any way out of the repetitive daily struggle to survive. She had no hope for the future. Her life involved spending days gather wood, walking for hours to collect water, and back-breaking work in the fields to try and grow enough food to feed…

Before The Hunger Project came to his community, Dennis was living in severe hunger. “Sometimes I found small jobs to do in exchange for food. Sometimes I would have to beg for food. Sometimes I would have to steal from my neighbours. Often, I would have to fall asleep without eating. I nearly died of…

Sunita Meena is the President (Sarpanch) of Aakodiya Block, Chaksu District, Jaipur. We met Sunita with her ward members in the village meeting hall.  Next door was a creche – set up for around 10-15 of the poorest children in the village. When we asked her what made her happy, she spoke about the previous…

Coumba, the epitome of leading through a “power with” others approach. As a young girl Coumba was illiterate, yet through The Hunger Project training she’s now a senior leader in the Senegal National Government who has trained more than 5,000 women to create and run their own successful businesses. The Mayor of Coki described her…

Ndeye Loum is a volunteer who has been trained by The Hunger Project in Coki, Senegal.  She lives in a village called Kane’ene Khar and says, before her training, 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…

Alawatu is a midwife in her local health clinic in the Coki village of Boffel. Before The Hunger Project health clinic was established in Boffel, 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…

Taking part in workshops run by The Hunger Project got Ndeye Ndiaye thinking about her future. She had learned to read and write in school and had also taken literacy classes but she had never been inspired to put her skills into action. When she was mentored by Coumba – a Hunger Project animator (trained…

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…

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…

Louise Langi is a 42-year-old woman from Benin, who is committed to helping women in her village realise their dreams.  Louise and her husband farm and deal in fruit, corn and peanuts to provide for their 6 children. Through The Hunger Project’s Vision, Commitment, Action (VCA) workshops – Louise has learned financial literacy and healthcare skills…

Laurinda Fabião Ngovene is a resident of Djodjo village at Chokwe Epicentre in Mozambique. She has one daughter and has been invovled with The Hunger Project since 2006. She joined The Hunger Project during her first Vision, Commitment and Action workshop in her community. Laurinda moved into leadership roles in the community, serving as the…

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…

These days, Guiré Salimata finds herself busy running a successful restaurant and providing for her five children. In 2013, before Guiré began participating in the Boulkon Epicentre Microfinance Program with The Hunger Project-Burkina Faso, her restaurant was just a small shop serving rice, soup and beans in the village market. Since obtaining a 50,000 CFA…

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 Dedgeba lives in an Ethiopian village near The Hunger Project’s Wurib Epicentre — a…

Aby Ndiaye 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,…

“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,” says 57-year-old Moises Fenias Malhaule. Moises lives with his family the 25 de Setembro village, in the Chokwe Epicentre of…

At Lahotan Epicentre in central Benin, The Hunger Project-Benin is working with the local community to staff and expand a small health clinic and to promote its services among community members.   Fathimath Omighessan, 28, is an epicentre midwife who has worked at the clinic for a year, alongside two assistants and a guard. At…

Namukasa Kasolo Tayiha, at just 10 years old, is investing in her own education and future after participating in The Hunger Project Uganda’s training on microfinance at her primary school. These workshops, led by volunteer animators, encourage youth to start saving and are often the first steps towards economic empowerment. In Uganda, microfinance supports the…

Geeta was born in a middle-income family in India and was educated to the 10th grade. When Geeta was 20, she married into a new Panchayat (village) and when she arrived she was surprised that so many girls were not in school, and that they were working instead. She also saw that child marriage was common practice…

This is Rukmani, oppressed and discriminated against for most of her life through no other reason than being born a women into a system she now works to overcome. She holds a position of power, being elected as a Sarpunch (head) of her Panchayat (village). This quiet thinker and elected leader turned up to her first…

After being forced to marry at 14, Razia from Bangladesh, was denied an education and was forced to stay at home and provide for her husband and children. After being trained by The Hunger Project, Razia was empowered with the knowledge of how to change her situation. She started a women’s self-help group in her community, set…

Christina from Malawi couldn’t afford to feed her family or send her children to school before The Hunger Project came to her village. Since then, Christina has received several microfinance loans from The Hunger Project and now she has a thriving shop in her community. She says, “I used my first loans to create a…

Meet Kenchamma, a non-literate Dalit (the lowest caste) woman from Southern India. Kenchamma was selected to join her local council after her family members registered her name because they assumed she’d step aside and let them make all of the decisions. No one thought Kenchamma would actually attend the meetings and they didn’t even tell…

Amina is from a remote community in Ghana, where hunger and poverty was a daily reality, and people lived hand-to-mouth, sometimes going without meals. After being trained by The Hunger Project, Amina developed a vision for her community where women are respected leaders and have access to microfinance loans. To achieve her dream, she stepped up to lead…

Rejeya Khatun is from Naopara, a village in the Meherpur district of Bangladesh. She was born and grew up in a lower middle class family. Her father was the only family member earning an income, through farming. Her parents had wanted to educate their daughter, but were unable to, due to their financial situation. They…

Nurunnahar Monzu is a woman leader from Kewra, a village in the Jhalakathi district of Barisal region of Bangladesh. She was born and grew up in an extremely poor family. Her father, a farmer, was the sole earner in their family. Her family faced such serious financial constraints that they were not able to send…

Naigaga Hadijja Bagalana is a mother of five children and married to an agriculturist. They come from Bukona parish in Uganda and live about 4 miles from the Iganga Epicentre. Hadijja joined The Hunger Project in 2003. She says before The Hunger Project came with its  programs in microfinance, women’s empowerment and food security, she…

Elizabeth is a successful entrepreneur. With loans and training from The Hunger Project, she has grown the size of her farming land from 10 to 50 acres. She has also hired people to work for her, and expanded into other businesses like fish, clothes and poultry. Now she can send her kids to school and she’s got the…

Navali is a 24 year old woman living in a remote tribal village in India. Her bold work has achieved remarkable results for her village. She was trained by The Hunger Project and with the skills and confidence she learned, she has worked within the system to get 4 new schools built in her area…

With a microfinance loan from The Hunger Project, Sara bought 20kg of flour and 10L of cooking oil for her business, bricks to build her house, a pig, a mobile phone, and a bed for her children. Building on this achievement, Sara plans to open a grocery shop and teach her children to be self-sufficient…

When she was elected to her local council, The Hunger Project provided training to help Ranjita fight for her rights and improve access to the health for her community. Ranjita managed to get a new health centre for babies and children put into her village, as well as 70 toilets. Her vision is that all…

After being trained by The Hunger Project, Romela started her own family garden. The food she grows not only feeds her family but saves them money, and means that she can even sell what’s left over to bring in more income. So that others can do similar things to what Romela has achieved, she decided…

Kamla’s resilience brought about real change in her village. Kamla was a child bride at 11 and had her first child at 12. Trained by The Hunger Project, she was empowered and learnt negotiation skills, and boosted her self-confidence. This empowered her to solve a local problem: some men in the village were wasting precious…