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Ms. Lang, Mother and Small Business Owner, Lifted by Empowerment Program

on  January 15, 2020

Dang Thi Lang, age 49, lives in the Hai Chau district, the administrative, economic, cultural, political and education center of Da Nang City, Vietnam. Orphaned at a young age, she became a cloth salesgirl at age 13 and then did several different jobs to earn a living until she got married at age 30. When her husband left after the birth of their first child, Ms. Lang says she filled the roles of both mother and father.For the past 19 years, she has worked various jobs in the hopes of giving her daughter a better life, from selling coffee, to serving in a vegetarian restaurant and working as a house cleaner. Ms. Lang now runs a sidewalk coffee stall every day.The number of customers fluctuates seasonally, with the dry season being much busier than the rainy season. She normally closes the stall in the early afternoon, but during the rainy season, she frequently has to close the shop early due to a lack of customers. When that happens and she doesn’t sell out of her coffee, she says “I drink my coffee instead of eating a meal.” Once her stall closes, she goes home to rest for an hour before leaving to work as a housekeeper and babysitter until 7 p.m.Ms. Lang made great strides after she enrolled in the Empowerment through Enterprise program, a joint initiative launched in 2017 by Rise Against Hunger and partner Children of Vietnam. The program focuses on improving economic stability for single mothers in the region and providing capital for endeavors to subsequently boost their income. Mrs. Lang uses the grant to buy more products for her coffee stall. She also receives training on how to calculate revenues and expenditures, which has enabled her to be able to save more of her income.Additionally, the program offers nutrition training to learn about food hygiene and safety. Ms. Lang uses what she’s learned to always keep the coffee at her stall hygienic. She also receives a nutritious Rise Against Hunger meal at the end of the training sessions.Beyond the practical training Ms. Lang has received, she says the program has helped her on an emotional level, too. She says it makes her feel that single women like her have not been abandoned, which makes her mind and soul more peaceful.Since her daughter’s birth, Ms. Lang has been committed to giving her daughter a good education. In 2018, her daughter passed the entrance exam for the University of Economics’ School of Tourism program. To help fund her studies, she received a scholarship from Children of Vietnam.Ms. Lang is incredibly proud of her daughter for her diligence and academic drive. She says, “It is amazing all that she is now also a student in the University of Economics. Hopeful for the day my daughter finishes her education and then my family will have a better future.”Rise Against Hunger provides nutritious meals and establishes agriculture and income-generating initiatives to support people in need on their journey out of hunger and poverty. To help empower women like Ms. Lang, as well as communities around the world, donate today!

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.