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“I enjoy spending time with my mother and showing her what we learn at school,” says 12-year-old Theonile. Anne Marie cherishes the moment her daughter Theonile arrives home from school each day. She is proud that Theonile is studying hard.
Anne Marie Mukandekezi, 38, is a mother of six and a resident of Gishubi village in Gakenke district in the Southern Province. She has always been a farmer but could only produce enough food for her family.
A beautiful village carpets the foot hills of Mt. Mbulu in Northern Tanzania. Water streams flow down the mountain into this attractive village. Magugu village is quiet and the streets are empty except for a few chickens running around and kids playing soccer. It’s almost the rainy time of year and people are working on their farms preparing for the season.
Lucia Abel (60) is a farmer that lives in Magugu and has raised seven children on her own. She remembers when her husband abandoned her when she was three months pregnant.
Although women make up almost half of the agricultural workforce across Africa — and perform 80% of the labor on smallholder farms — millions of them don’t have access to financial services, training, and other opportunities that could help them escape poverty.
These inequalities don’t just hurt women — they cripple entire nations, holding back about half the population from participating in a society’s economic growth. It’s estimated that if women in these communities could afford productive resources like business training, seeds, and fertilizer, up to 150 million fewer people would go hungry every day.
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| Secundina’s hillside plot |
Early morning, with a soft breeze blowing up the hillside, we catch Secundina Aquino working the soil with a hoe on the plot of land that she is currently cultivating with her savings group. Secundina and her savings group are learning new agricultural techniques to farm tomatoes and green bell peppers.
Secundina is a strong, active woman who is driven to learn new agricultural techniques. But she didn’t always have this knowledge. Her husband Juan Ramón Ramirez worked as a day laborer on other farms and only earned five dollars per day during harvest season. She recalls, “It was a struggle to try to feed all of our children with only five dollars per day; it was never enough.”
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| Ester feeds the pigs she is raising for income |
Ester remembers how frightened she was, especially after she was divorced and took over the responsibility of raising her four boys on her own. Ester hails from Timbiri village in the Chikwina-Mpamba Area Program, some 240 miles north of Malawi’s capital city of Lilongwe. As a divorced woman, she struggled to find shelter, food and other basic necessities for her children including paying school fees and other school supplies.
“Life was hopeless, and I had no tangible source of income for the home. Fetching (searching for money) for rent-als every month added salt to the wound. I really felt the pinch of leading a single headed household. Even to find money to buy fertilizer for farming was a big hassle,” says Ester.
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| Elezeti & Lufelo now live happily |
It is windy and the air of Ntambo community’s bare horizon is fully engulfed in dusty particles, flickering through the twilight. It is difficult to see as we drive on the small dirt road leading to Elezeti Mwale’s home in eastern Zambia.
Not that many years ago, Elezeti was preparing to work in the field. Her youngest son, Lufelo, then 8, left to harvest a sack of cotton to help pay his school fees when something terrible happened to him. “A big snake bit me above my right ankle,” Lufelo says, “I screamed for help before I fell down, feeling a sharp pain.”
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| Virgina’s bounty of fruits & vegetables are ready for market |
“I need to rush to the market place because there is a big truck from the city coming to pick some sacks of food that I sell to them on a weekly basis. They always get here at around this time, so I have to get there before they do,” says Virginia.
Virginia, 37, is a jovial woman and full of stamina while she goes about her work. Her face is lit with joy as she fervently shares the story of her transformation. She is a farmer. Virginia owns gardens where she grows bananas, corn, yams, pineapples, and sweet potatoes among other crops. She also owns a piggery and other livestock.
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| Taulo & Rosemary in front of their new home |
Taulo Banda, 42, proudly showed me the electricity cable that taps power from the national grid to his house. “A few years ago, I would never have believed that one day I would live in a house like this one,” says Taulo, adding, “But, thanks to World Vision, I have achieved the impossible.” The new house is made of brick with a metal roof and windowpanes. Behind him, stands his old homestead. It is composed of two round grass-thatched structures. The sharp contrast between the old and new houses illustrates the transformation that has taken place in Taulo’s life.
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| Ermis cuts back excess leaves to increase his bell pepper production |
Walking up a steep hill, I arrive at a beautiful green bell pepper and tomato plot. It's early in the morning and the breeze is blowing from north to south. Continuing, I find Ermis Ramos cutting away excess leaves around the green bell peppers. He explains that by removing some of the leaves, the pepper will have more space to grow to full size. Ermis says, “I have learned new practices and techniques that were unknown to me, this new knowledge is priceless to me because no one will take it away.”
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| Ramadhani has increased his production of bananas, providing food and income for his family |
A drive to Gidabagar village opens up into a beautiful scenery of hills and small rivers. Many farmers can be seen working in their farms this time of year as they are preparing for the next farming season that begins around November to January with short rains.
Ramadhani Doho (60) is one of those farmers preparing for the season. One difference between Ramadhani and the other farmers is that he is farming and harvesting all year round. This was not the case a few years back, because Ramadhani depended on seasonal farming of maize and pigeon peas for food and for sale.
