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Let’s Celebrate Jacquelyne from Gokwe North, Zimbabwe, This Mother's Day!

on  May 11, 2023

In the communities we serve across the globe, sustainable agriculture and income-generating programs have helped mothers and their children thrive by improving their quality of life through nutritious meals and education – providing a newfound sense of hope and purpose. In honor of Mother’s Day, we celebrate Jacquelyne, a wife and mother who lives in Gokwe North, Zimbabwe. The community where she lives is prone to droughts and wildlife disruptions, which creates challenges for her family to harvest healthy crops. The Planting Seeds for Strong Communities project, implemented by Rise Against Hunger and impact partner ADRA International, establishes home-grown school feeding programs and trains farmers in climate-smart agriculture to support long-term food security in Zimbabwe. After participating in the project and receiving Village Savings and Loan Association group training, Jacquelyne now earns an income, which she uses to pay for her education and her children’s school fees. Jacquelyne has not only felt more empowered, but she has also inspired other women in her community to become entrepreneurs.“The introduction of the [program] liberated and empowered me. I now know that I must be an entrepreneur in order to make money. I was able to buy some goats and pay for my education. I was also able to pay for my children’s academic fees,” Jacquelyne said.Jacquelyne has also seen her children’s focus at school improve. “My children enjoy going to school because they are given food by Rise Against Hunger…I am grateful for this [program],” Jacquelyne said. She also provides meals at home for her family, alongside her husband, Blyberg, with the help of the community sheller and oil-pressing machine. Watch this video to learn more about Jacquelyne’s remarkable journey in Zimbabwe. Together, we can create a world where no mother has to worry about where the next meal will come from. Make Mother’s Day even more meaningful by donating to empower mothers like Jacquelyne to create a brighter future for their families.

About the Author

Strength, Stability And Hope

The gift that filled Nelly’s table.

“We were yielding very little, and the crops could not sustain us the whole year,” Nelly remembers. As a mother of seven and a farmer with two decades of experience, the stress of inconsistent yields was all-consuming. A poor harvest not only strained her family financially, but also limited their own meals to just two a day. Their story reflects that of many in their fishing and farming village near a lake in the Karonga district of northern Malawi. Here, heavy rainfall makes conventional farming methods nearly impossible. The entire village is, quite literally, saturated in food insecurity — a reality that leaves families struggling to survive season after season without a dependable source of nourishment.

In 2019, Nelly began participating in Harvesting Prosperity and Resilience, a sustainable agriculture project implemented by Rise Against Hunger in partnership with the Foundation for Community Support Services (FOCUS). The project works with 3,100 smallholder farmers in Malawi’s Karonga and Mzimba districts to strengthen food and nutrition security by improving production methods, nutrition practices and household income.

Just one year later, Nelly was ready to expand the variety of crops on her farm. What land once only produced maize began to flourish with sesame, cowpeas, rice and groundnuts during the rainy season (summer), as well as maize and vegetables during the dry season (winter). Through climate-smart agriculture training, she learned new techniques like manure making, pit planting and mulching, crop rotation and intercropping. Equipped with these tools, Nelly’s farm began to thrive.

After the 2023–2024 growing season, she sold enough produce to purchase an ox cart. Her harvests in 2024-2025 season yielded over 500 pounds of crops, including 22 bags of groundnuts, seven bags of maize, 12 tins of sesame and three bags of rice. With this surplus, she was able to invest in a motorbike, which she now uses to transport African doughnuts (mandasi) that she cooks and sells — creating yet another source of income for her family.

The transformation reaches far beyond her finances. Nelly now has the stability to provide for her husband and children. “I am able to eat different food types, pay school fees for my children and fulfill the visions that I have made with my family,” she beams. “I am now sleeping peacefully without any fears of food or paying school fees for the children.”

Her leadership has also grown. Today, Nelly serves as a leader in the Harvesting Prosperity and Resilience project, teaching other farmers in her district to adopt climate-resilient, labor-saving practices. By sharing her knowledge, she is multiplying her impact — empowering her neighbors to experience the same transformation she has achieved.

Across Nelly’s community, food and economic security are on the rise. Lombani, a government extension officer for the region, explains, “I can see the community is being transformed in the sense that in the area, there is food, income and nutrition security. Development is also happening at the household level.”

Nelly reflects on what it means to invest in holistic programs that address the root causes of hunger: “We are now healthy people. Children are going to school after eating their breakfast, having high yields and different types of crops due to conservation agriculture practices. With the support from the project, we have food, and we can access other food items from the market after selling our produce.”

This is the gift that fills: a future full of stability, strength and hope. It fills tables with food, families with security and communities with the resources to thrive. It’s an investment in futures rooted in resilience and hope.