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Nutritious Meals Uplift 15-Year-Old Zambian Girl as she Becomes a Top Student

on  May 10, 2019

At only 15 years old, Memory carries herself with confidence and zeal as an exceptional student despite her difficult circumstances growing up in Zambia. Living in a rural area in the capital city of Lusaka, she shares her passion for her nation, community and education.Memory and her family face challenges around access to basic needs such as food, clean water, hygiene and healthcare. For Memory and many of her classmates, the Rise Against Hunger meals they receive at school distributed by partner Family Legacy Missions are often their only meal of the day. Having a life-changing and positive impact, the meals have affected Memory both physically and mentally. Physically, she has gained much of the weight she lost due to malnourishment, and mentally, she is now able to focus in school. Now mastering the English language, she is also an aid to the teach in helping her other classmates. Memory expresses that the Rise Against Hunger meals have helped her become the student she is today.Memory attends Lusaka West school, which also partners with Family Legacy Missions. The program provides education and nutritional support to orphaned children in 22 impoverished areas of Lusaka. Just like Memory, many students now have an interest in attending school and aren’t burdened by wondering when they’ll receive their next meal. Besides being more engaged in school, the meals have provided a way for these children to not only feel full, but to eat meals with substantial nutritional value.Memory’s teacher at Lusaka West school, Mrs. Chiimewe, reiterates that Memory has become one of her top students. Having the opportunity to work closely with many students, Mrs. Chiimewe witnessed children go from being uninterested and distracted to being engaged and focused in class after getting the proper nutrients in their food on a daily basis.Ultimately, Memory hopes that one day she’ll be able to help other children in the way that Family Legacy and Rise Against Hunger have helped her. With her newfound confidence and high spirits, she has a bright future ahead and dreams of becoming a teacher. As Memory continues to encourage her classmates, she leaves an impact on her community and uses her life-changing experience to make a difference in Zambia.

About the Author

Janae Curtain is the Manager of Digital Marketing at Rise Against Hunger. Janae leads the development and execution of digital marketing initiatives including social media, email marketing, digital advertising and more!

More Posts by Janae Curtain

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.