• Other Global Locations
  • Search
Host an Event
Donate
  • Nourishing Lives

Nutritious Meals Support Omar’s Dream of Becoming an Architect

on  November 21, 2022

Omar is a 15-year-old boy living in Honduras. 

Many people in Honduras rely on agriculture for work, but recent natural disasters have disrupted the industry. More than half the population lives under the poverty line, particularly in rural areas, and chronic malnutrition affects approximately one-fourth of the country’s children.

Omar faced food insecurity every day growing up, often having nothing to eat at home. His mother also died when he was six years old and his father left, which resulted in his siblings raising him.

He then began participating in our partner Convoy of Hope’s program centers. Through Convoy of Hope’s feeding program, he regularly receives — and has received for years — Rise Against Hunger meals to support his nutritional needs. “The food that we get here is different than what we get at home,” said Omar. “Sometimes I don’t have food at home, but I know I will get food here.” 

Omar is one of 30 kids receiving meals at the program center. Ana Victoria, the director of the program center, said she has noticed health benefits for the children. “The kids don’t normally get sick here,” she said. “We have very strong kids with a lot of energy.”

Omar is now healthy and strong. As he goes through his teenage years, he is hopeful about his future. With an interest in both math and drawing in school, he hopes to combine these two passions and become an architect. He’s already started reaching for this dream by preparing to study finance at a local technical school. “This place has changed my life in a lot of ways,” he said. “I’m just about to start at a technical school where I can study finance because I like math, too.”

Want to have a hands-on impact in the lives of people like Omar? Host a meal packaging event with your school, business, church or group to package meals distributed to the communities we serve around the world!

About the Author

Hannah Payne is the Public Relations & Communications Manager at Rise Against Hunger. She facilitates communication between Rise Against Hunger and the media.

More Posts by Hannah Payne

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.