Our Stories

India: Transforming poor rural women into successful business managers

Ten years ago Pushpa Devi Maurya joined a self-help group to make ends meet in the village of Chak Padri in the state of Uttar Pradesh, northern India. Today this 35-year-old mother of two manages the bulk milk chilling centre set up by the milk producers’ company near her village. The centre collec more

Exhuming the stories of Guatemala’s lost

By Héctor Morales Delgado After 36 years of internal armed conflict in Guatemala, thousands of confidential facts about the actions of the State have been registered by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. They include serious violations of human rights and attacks directed at the civilian popu more

Strengthening education in Bangladesh

It is 8:30 a.m. in the village of Matiranga, in the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh. School is about to begin and, unlike in years past, the children arriving for their preschool and primary school classes know they will have no trouble understanding what is said in their lessons. The Hill Trac more

Georgia: Microloans offer new starts in war-torn regions

Dali Chilachava and her family fled their home village in Abkhazia, Georgia, after separatist conflict broke out in the region in 1993. For 12 years they endured extreme poverty, until a microfinance programme helped them to start a small business growing and selling lillies. In regions of Georgia more

Ion casts a vote of hope for Moldova's future

"Lume, lume", "Voteaza, lume!". « People, people », « vote, people! ». Spurred by a campaign based on a popular folk song, the people of Moldova cast their votes during the early parliamentary elections on 28 November 2010. Thanks to the introduction of an adv more

Mana Dulce: spurring change in Timor Leste

36 year old Dulce Junior from Timor-Leste is playing a key role in reshaping the future of the world's second youngest country. Known as “Mana” (Sister) Dulce to her colleagues and friends, she is one of many prominent women activists in the country working to put women’s needs at the center of th more

Emiliana helps herself by helping the elderly in Bulgaria

“Don’t take her away,” urged Emiliana, a Bulgarian social assistant who provided personal care to an 87 year-old woman in Pravetz municipality. The elderly woman had lost two of her three sons and was and was living alone with arthritis and diabetes until Emiliana intervened. Emiliana kept the woman more

Survivors of Pakistan's floods lay foundations for new homes

Struggling to help her husband with a long-term respiratory illness when their wooden house was swept away by catastrophic flooding in the north of Pakistan, Gul Numa, over 80 years old, survived the initial weeks of August in a makeshift camp. Numa and her husband, Sayed Qalandar Shah, 90, were more

Bringing economic security to women in Nepal

Dipmala Mahato is beginning to feel the benefits that financial prosperity can bring. While she still lives in a one-room home, constructed of mud and roughly the size of a table-tennis board, she now earns a decent income selling her vegetables in the twice-weekly local market. Mahato is one of 32 more

New market lifts profits for women

Grace Poni, a 42 year-old mother of 10, no longer has to shell out precious cash to transport her farm produce to distant markets. These days, she and 100 other women sell their goods at a newly constructed market right in their hometown of Nyai-Wudabi in South Sudan’s Central Equatoria State. Nyai more

From one meal a day to three

Inside Asea Begum's home, shelves teem with jars containing pulses, grains, spices and dried biscuits. A little girl runs in with a small plastic bottle that Begum fills with cooking oil in exchange for a few coins. Asea Begum runs a small grocery store out of her one-room house in the Mymensingh di more

Coffee-flavoured success in Ethiopia

Wearing white jackets usually reserved for doctors, men in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital city, taste coffee with a seriousness that verges on academic. These taste-testers ensure that the coffee grown by Ethiopian farmers meets the highest standards before it is put up for sale at the Ethiopian more

Rebuilding war-torn communities in Burundi

The village of Gitukura, in the northern Burundi province of Cibitoke, has experienced firsthand the devastating consequences of two decades of ethnic conflict and civil war. Located on the Rwandan border, its inhabitants, mostly women and children, live in almost complete isolation and deprivation. more

Playing soccer for peace in Colombia

Only eleven, Kevin Dagua is quite familiar with war. At the slightest sound of gunfire, he and his family run for shelter. Kevin lives in the northern part of the Cauca department in Colombia, one of the areas hit hardest by the dispute between armed groups, including the FARC and the Colombian Army more

Volunteer teachers combat illiteracy in Burkina Faso

The school year started off poorly for first-level elementary students in Lolonioro, a village located in the heart of the bush in southwest Burkina Faso. Following the maternity leave of their teacher, the 67 pupils were unable to start lessons at the beginning of the official school year in Septem more

From unemployment to entrepreneurship

“Light is coming out of my city,” says 20-year old Abonesh Dejene, referring to the success of a UNDP training and business development initiative in southern Ethiopia. Dejene, of Wolyta Sodo town, is the sole female in a group of young people who were once unemployed after dropping out of school, b more

Sowing seeds of recovery in post-flood Pakistan

“My half-acre of paddy field, two hens and goat were washed away in the flooding,” reports Imam Bibi, a 60-year-old farmer from Hindu Wan village in Punjab, Pakistan. “This farming package comes as a blessing at this dismal time.” Bibi was among the nearly 10,000 recipients of a seed and fertilizer more

Rebuilding Haiti

Josiane Vesna is a resident of Bel Air, one of the most violent, poor, and garbage-filled zones in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Following the earthquake that devastated the country one year ago, Josiane, along with nearly 1000 other Haitians, was hired to rebuild six neighbourhoods, including her own. “Af more

In Venezuela, music provides hope for impoverished youth

Nehyda Alas, a teacher and director of Venezuela’s Teresa Carreño Youth Symphony Orchestra, believes that when children are exposed to music their behaviour improves. He should know. Alas has been teaching music education to at-risk youth from Caracas’ poor communities, where children and teens are more

Reducing maternal death in Eritrea

In the market town of Senafe, in southern Eritrea, Fethawi Berhane has just undergone three days of painful labor and complications during childbirth that resulted in the death of her baby, despite the best efforts of a traditional birth attendant. Fethawi herself is lucky to have survived, given th more

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