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Attending School Ensures SayidAli Receives an Education and Nourishing Meals

on  December 13, 2022

In Somaliland’s Salahley District, 14-year-old SayidAli lives with his parents and eight siblings.Due to the semi-arid climate, the area has faced a prolonged drought. Pasture shortages for livestock and inadequate health facilities have also impacted the community’s primary industry and human health. These effects have directly impacted SayidAli’s father, a farmer, who had to move away to find water and pasture for his livestock.In addition to the drought, food prices have increased drastically due to the economic impacts of COVID-19 and global conflicts. As a result, many in the community, including SayidAli’s family, face food shortages. “We don’t have enough to buy all the needed food,” SayidAli said.SayidAli and two of his siblings attend school in the area. At school, they receive a nutritious meal provided by Rise Against Hunger and distributed by partner American Relief Agency for the Horn of Africa (ARAHA). Rise Against Hunger supports the community by providing cash grants to ARAHA for local and regional food procurement. Students are served meals at school and provided take-home rations for their families. According to Dr. Sahal, assistant director of ARAHA Somaliland, they provide locally procured food to more than 900 students and their families. Ali, the school’s principal, explained that the school meals and take-home rations have a “double advantage” for the students. Dr. Sahal shares, “They get enough food during schooltime, which helps them to travel [to and from school] without any problem… Their families also get enough food to feed their children at home, which is an advantage to them and their siblings.”The school meals have helped SayidAli and other children in the community. “The assistance has helped us attend school regularly, unlike before, and we are also happy that more children are now attending school from our community,” SayidAli said.With SayidAli attending school more regularly, the principal has high hopes for the student’s future. “I hope SayidAli will be a doctor who will help his community,” Ali said. “I also hope that he will achieve his dream one day.”Interested in growing the movement with Rise Against Hunger to support lives just like SayidAli and his family? Consider hosting a meal packaging event with your business, church or school to package meals distributed around the globe to help people facing food insecurity.

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.