Economic Development

A $45 loan nearly doubled a family’s income. Here’s how. U Htein Win is a widower; his wife passed away four years ago. Four of the couple’s eight children still live at home; the rest are married and living independently. After his wife’s passing, U Htein became the family’s sole breadwinner. U Htein has his own boat and relies on fishing as a source of income and as a way to add protein to his family’s daily meals. He was making about 3,000 Kyat ($2) each day. He has long wanted to expand into shrimp fishing, but in order to do that he would need special traps. If he were to try to take out a loan to buy the traps, it would be at a 10-15% interest rate that he simply couldn’t afford. His life changed, though, when CWS introduced the concept of a savings group to his village…

Bogota, Colombia is a capital city filled with commerce and tourism. But, just outside the city center exists a noticeable contrast in housing and economic development where the poorest families reside. Many of the city’s poorest families live on the outskirts in the mountains, and they have very difficult commutes into the city center for work. Without daycare, many of the young parents would not be able to earn an income to support their families. Fe y Alegria, a Jesuit network of organizations helping the disadvantaged and poor since 1955, has preschools within this community offering free services to children up to 5 years of age. These services include: monitoring and evaluating the child’s development, nutritional supplementation and home interventions when needed. The administrator of the preschool feeds the children three nutritious meals per day. Although it doesn’t sound like a huge accomplishment, she does this on just $1 (one…

Michel became a mom in June 2021, when baby Nathan was born; she’s part of the Wayuu community. She lives with her dad, brother and another child that a friend asked her to care for two years ago. She’s a medical laboratory technician and holds a B.A. in Administration. Although she currently works as a Procurement Analyst, she doesn’t make enough to pay for basic needs. Michel has participated in different IRC-supported programs in the community center that is located a couple blocks away from her house. She first visited to get attention after experiencing pain while breast feeding, that’s how she joined the breast-feeding orientation program, in which she has now started to participate to share with other moms-to-be her experience. Additionally, she has joined the Wapushii program after Nathan was born, where she learns how to promote his development during the Early Childhood stage; she also has accessed…

Dr. Paul Farmer’s return to Partners In Health-supported Butaro District Hospital in December was one full of emotions as he accompanied the inaugural class of medical students from the University of Global Health Equity (UGHE) on rounds through the oncology wards. “I am very emotional because I am so excited and grateful,” Farmer said. “I have been dreaming of this for 20 years right here in Rwanda. “ Farmer is a familiar face at Butaro District Hospital—a familiarity that has less to do with his leadership roles, as co-founder and chief strategist of PIH and chancellor of UGHE, and more with how, over the years, he has spent his time there interacting with patients and getting to know the staff. Most recently, Farmer came to Butaro in early December last year with Harvard professor and psychiatrist Dr. John Sharp and provided a special training for students at a patient’s bedside….

A fight against the spread of hunger is underway across East Africa, where 32.9 million people are experiencing a complex hunger crisis driven by conflict, the economic impacts of the global pandemic, swarms of desert locusts, and extreme weather conditions. According to the United Nations, at least 5.3 million people in Ethiopia, South Sudan, and Sudan are living under “emergency” conditions, with the threat of acute malnutrition and death. In South Sudan, 105,000 are living under “catastrophic” levels of food insecurity. By air, land, and sea, World Vision teams are delivering emergency food supplies across the region—an area so vast it equates to more than half the size of the United States—in a race to feed hungry families living in some of the most dangerous and isolated places on earth. “We are marshaling resources to support vulnerable communities across East Africa to avert the catastrophic effects of hunger and loss…

In 2021 as disruptions due to the pandemic continued to impact the people we serve, Rise Against Hunger implemented the 2021 COVID-19 Relief & Resilience Plan to bolster and sustain one of our key priorities–Nourishing Lives through Local Food Procurement. Funds for Local or regional procurement of food commodities were provided to our impact partners through grants, cash-based assistance, cooperative agreements, and other mechanisms. Programming leveraged resources, skills, and partnerships with local suppliers, and enhanced the delivery of a nutrition-rich food basket, including cereals, cooking oil, fresh fruits, and vegetables, proteins, sugar, and salt. Local regional procurement began in Timor-Leste during 2021. Despite restrictions on movement due to the pandemic, the team started distribution in July reaching various sites including schools, refugee camps, and orphanages. Before, Mario and his two siblings picked up odd jobs to pay for their hostel while they attended the university. After the onset of the…