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One Woman’s Green Thumb Changes the Lives of Many in her Burkina Faso Community

on  August 28, 2019

In a small city in Burkina Faso lives 55-year-old Kabore, whose garden has supplied nutritious food for multiple households in her community. With a single idea in mind to feed her family after the loss of her husband, she turned a small stock of millet into a full market garden that will be utilized for years to come.Becoming the sole provider for nine children unexpectedly, Kabore was on a mission to provide for her family. She took the first step to claim her family’s land, but was denied due  to local religious customs. Taking matters into her own hands, she gained a small stock of millet from a family’s crop. Using her resources and creative thinking, Kabore decided to transform the stock and sell it to use funds for other items.Although the village has no electricity or power, the main economic activities are related to livestock and agriculture. With this in mind, Kabore came up with an idea to start a small business. She transformed the millet flour into paste, which could be used as various items to be sold around the village.In addition to starting this small business, Kabore joined a group of men and women involved in market gardening once she saw the potential in onion and maize production in the area. In 2014, as part of the Catholic Relief Services Helping Hands program, the group received a grant to start a California-style market garden. By 2015, the group’s garden was in production with two types of crops: maize during the rainy season and onions during the dry season.Today, Kabore benefits from funding from Rise Against Hunger and Catholic Relief Services, which helps to support her market gardening site. Because of Kabore’s hard work and dedication to make a difference for her family, more than 60 additional households have improved their livelihoods and living conditions. Her method of farming and gardening is also been used by people in her town. Beneficiaries have been trained in agricultural production techniques, marketing basics, water management and peer mentoring in the Tougouri community.”We all manage to live with dignity,” Kabore said.

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!

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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.