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Daily Meals Provide Hope for Aina and His Family in Madagascar

on  December 28, 2022

Around the world, many regions have faced significant impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic, including Ikianja, a small village in Madagascar. Many community members lost their jobs as a result of government-mandated lockdowns. Among those affected were the parents of six-year-old Aina. Although his mother was able to secure a job providing a small daily income, his father has remained unemployed due to the local economy. In this region, most of the community members earn their living daily as fishermen, dock workers and washerwomen, among other activities, and only 10% of people have regular monthly employment.  To ensure Aina would receive nutritious daily meals, his parents enrolled him in the Ankadindambo Public Primary School. In partnership with Rise Against Hunger, Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) distributes rice, beans, oil, salt and tomatoes to the cantina so students can enjoy locally procured foods prepared in a culturally appropriate way.  Onja, an internal auditor for the school cantina, explains how parents in the community feel reassured that their children are receiving regular meals at the school and credits the increased attendance and graduation rates to the daily meals. The school’s headmaster, Lalasoa, agrees that the cantina has had a significant impact on the students and has been working with parents to promote the importance of the school’s garden to increase nutrient diversity in their households.Despite working with limited finances and resources, the state is working to implement this program in every public primary school to increase the success of the cantina program across the region. ADRA is also working diligently to implement more school-based gardens in multiple schools throughout the region.While Aina is in the first grade, he loves going to school, where he enjoys delicious meals and always has a great time with his friends.Join the movement to end hunger by hosting a meal packaging event with Rise Against Hunger. As meals are distributed around the globe to help people facing food insecurity, your support will nourish many lives, just like Aina.

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.