THE COST OF HOLDING WOMEN BACK

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.

“When I saw these children living in desperate conditions, my heart broke and I asked their mothers if I can take them with me and raise them.” Magdalena pauses for a moment and takes a deep sigh with her head bowed down and when she raises her head up, it is clear that she is having a difficult time pushing back tears from her bright eyes. She looks at me and breaks the silence “Being a mother is a blessing, but being an abandoned single mother is the worst nightmare anyone can wish for,” she says.

Gladys picking peppers

Every morning, Gladys wakes up and runs into the kitchen for breakfast. Her mother, Olga Campos (37) prepares her a healthy meal; Soy milk, green tortillas made out of vegetables, eggs and beans. Gladys who is 4 and half years old looks very healthy and happy. They all live in the community of Santa Ifigenia in Honduras. “Thanks to the recipes I learn from the World Vision project, ‘Common pot’, I saved my daughter’s life,” Olga says very proudly. A few years ago Gladys use to suffer from anemia, she almost died. Her father Jaime Coto use to work at other people’s farm, making a daily income of $6. This was not enough to properly feed his family. “We struggle for a long time with money, my daughter was very sick and it was hard for me to afford Ramon and Ana Julissa, my other 2 children ́s education,” Jamie recalls.  

Liyana Zenasi hails from Zenasi village in Chilenje Area Program in Malawi. She is married to Enosi and together, they have 4 children, age ranging from 6 to 18. For years, they have engaged in rain-fed subsistence farming, using traditional farming methods and with no involvement into micro enterprise. Providing for the family’s basic needs and supporting children with school supplies was an uphill task. They could hardly harvest enough from their fields and had no other source of income.

Global leaders have committed to eradicate extreme poverty by 2030.  And for the first time in modern history, the world is coming to the collective realization that it is possible to completely end extreme poverty in our lifetimes.  World Vision is leading the charge on a variety of fronts, including equipping, educating and empowering smallholder farmers break the cycle of generational poverty that has held their families back.  Until now.

A humanitarian’s painstaking work to transform desert-like landscapes into thriving forests and farmland has been hailed a game-changer for combating famine and deforestation.

World Vision’s Tony Rinaudo has won the Right Livelihood Award, also known as the ‘Alternative Nobel Prize’, after more than 35 years working across Asia and Africa.

The Empowered Worldview is a biblically-based training and action learning curriculum created by World Vision and other partners.  Its central purpose is to build a deep acceptance and understanding that all humans have been endowed by their Creator with the ability and capacity to lead productive, creative lives – from earning and income and providing for their families, to family roles and relationships, and from caring for others in the community to caring for creation - and to combat a dependency mindset.  The Empowered Worldview uses both a teaching curriculum as well as short-term and long-term action learning through special projects and engaging in empowering activities such as Savings Groups.

World Vision continues to press forward with Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration[i], with a number of exciting developments taking place across the African continent.  This lays the natural resource management foundation for World Vision’s THRIVE program.  World Vision is pushing forward with strategic partnerships, global and regional platforms, developing an evidence base, and pushing ahead with large scale projects. 

Recent record-high temperatures across the USA have put the spotlight on how to cope with the heat. One of God’s best inventions for this is – a TREE!  Trees and agriculture can and do go together, and we bring them together in the THRIVE program through Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR).

In Niger, the encroaching Sahara Desert is a daily challenge for farmers – the wind, sand, dust, soil degradation, water scarcity, and recurring drought make it hard for farmers to provide well for their families.  Restoring and managing trees is proving to be not only a way of growing more crops, but there is a special tree that has the sweet taste of success.

Estella and Augustine Nsabika’s story is one of family and faith, a strong demonstration of how World Vision is helping vulnerable households in Zambia climb the rungs of the economic ladder and increase their economic stability. This strong framework is the basis of THRIVE (Transforming Household Resilience in Vulnerable Environments) - growing families through education and faith.