(Photo courtesy of Food for the Hungry)

One of Food for the Hungry’s change-enacting programs is their care groups for women. UNICEF estimates around 29,000 children die each day due to preventable issues — many of them poverty-related. By providing education and support to mothers through these care groups, Food for the Hungry is taking an active role in reducing child mortality and encouraging the well-being of the entire community.

Food for the Hungry’s President and CEO Gary Edmonds explains, “We place them into what we call care groups. We’ll get a lead mother, and in that kind of a context with multiple mothers working together, they’re going to receive training on how to set-up and have nutritious meals to overcome malnutrition in their children, how to overcome maternal health issues…and then how to create a home environment that will diminish or mitigate domestic violence.”

Another one of the ministry’s impactful programs for moms is their savings groups. Women join these savings groups to learn business and financial skills, and these tools are especially essential for mothers in impoverished areas where they may be the sole provider for their children.

Edmonds shares Alba’s story, a 30-year-old mom whose life was changed in a savings group. She needed to provide for her seven-year-old daughter and had already lost an infant son, only days old.

Through the savings group, “[Alba] learned how to take banana fibers, use other fibers, [and] began to build things such as purses and dresses and scarves and hats and just have handicraft things that she could begin to sell on an open market.”

The ministry doesn’t just see change in the mothers’ lives. Mothers join the savings and care groups often to bless their children and families. And as they bless their children and families with the tools they’re given in Food for the Hungry’s programs, their communities are blessed as well.

Edmonds shares this quote from Alba: “‘I feel that even my community is benefiting my work. For me, Food for the Hungry and all its contributors are a symbol of family transformation along with many other women in my community, and I’m sure we’re very grateful for them.’”

(Photo courtesy of Food for the Hungry)

With both the care groups and the savings groups, the hope of the Gospel permeates into their conversations and provides the ‘why’ behind it all.

“In order for a person to find health and wholeness, we need to operate with transformation on both a physical as well as a spiritual kind of a level…. We have training on a daily basis that go along with the skills training that talk about cultivating a relationship with God, cultivating a love for neighbor,” says Edmonds.

“You…have the addressing of the physical needs and the skills to that kind of an end, but it also gets addressed with a presentation of the Gospel, with biblical truth, biblical values.”

Pray for Alba and moms like her to be strengthened in Christ as they support their families. Also, ask God to bless these ministries to mothers with Food for the Hungry as they seek the holistic transformation of families and communities.

If you’d like to support Food for the Hungry and their various ministries, click here to give at their website!

Edmonds shares, “When Food for the Hungry takes a look why we do what we do, we actually go back into Genesis – the first three chapters – and we say, ‘What was broken originally when sin entered the world?’ Four primary relationships were broken: relationship with God, relationship with ourselves, relationship with the created order — but the fourth part of that is a relationship with others.”

(Image courtesy of Food for the Hungry)

Mentorship is a powerful tool in restoring relationships as Food for the Hungry works to end all forms of human poverty. “It’s to get to know them by name, to begin to walk with them,” says Edmonds. “I say it this way: through my relationship with these people, I’m able to connect the poor and the vulnerable to other people who would be outside their sphere of knowledge or insight. I’m able to connect them to other ideas, ideas that I might know or have, but they’re not familiar with. And then I can connect them to other tools or resources which they do not necessarily have access to now.”

Food for the Hungry invites the people they serve to contribute to the mentorship process. One way is through savings groups.

Edmonds says, “We’re helping people learn how to save, how to organize themselves, establish rules, and help each other.” No money is provided by the ministry for the savings groups. Rather, those who join the groups pool their own resources together so they are multiplied. Small loans are then provided to help members run their business, manage healthcare or educational needs, and serve their families well.

“In Bangladesh, we have about 900 savings groups right now with women that are helping them to rise to a place of dignity, save money, collect money safely, and be able to transfer it one to another.”

(Image courtesy of Food for the Hungry)

Cascade groups are another form of mentorship that results in transformation. These groups are primarily focused on healthcare issues, and allow women to lead and care for other women in the community.

“It’s taking mothers and teaching them such things about health, nutrition, breastfeeding, sanitation, hygiene, how to care for their children. You’ll have a staffer from Food for the Hungry who coaches that lead mother, who works with them in a mentoring relationship,” continues Edmonds. “And we’re watching dramatically child mortality decrease, we’re seeing a place where domestic violence is decreasing. They move beyond what they would be able to do if they were independent in isolation one from another.”

The transformation that takes place in lives when mentorship is included in ministry is awe-inspiring. Only four percent of individuals in highly impoverished situations will fulfill their hopes and dreams. Provided basic training, that rate increases to 20 percent. If an actual development plan is created, around 40 percent will rise up to fulfill their dreams. But, according to Edmonds, “If you walk with them, if you coach, if you mentor them, it rises to literally 88 percent who begin to move forward in fulfilling their hopes, their dreams, their aspirations.”

(Image courtesy of Food for the Hungry)

Edmonds says it’s those dreams and opportunity to share Christ’s love that compels Food for the Hungry to keep investing in the lives of the vulnerable. “We want to support people, we want to help create accountability, we want there to be a place of training and encouragement, of simply just love, of walking alongside of these people. Because by doing so, they’re going to rise to a whole new place of what it is to be human, to find a sense of fulfillment, and to be self-sustaining in their own lives.”

Child sponsorship is a tangible way to provide support to mothers who are rising up through mentorship with Food for the Hungry. Sustainable gifts are also available through their gift catalog.

Frying crickets to sell.
(Photo by Food for the Hungry)

Cambodia (MNN) — God can use anything to change people’s lives and to provide opportunities to share the Gospel. Usually, however, you wouldn’t think He’d use crickets.

According to Food for the Hungry, many families live on less than $2 a day. Even though they might have an income, Beth Allen of FH says, “One of the things that’s tough for many of our families is that the income comes in droops and drabs, especially if you’re in agriculture.”

One idea is for these families to start a business that will fill in the gaps and provide a reliable income. This sounds familiar, but Food for the Hungry uses a program that has a leg up on micro-enterprise loans. They are called savings groups.

Allen says, “A savings group is a group of people that come together–often times they choose the people that they want to be with, 10-12 people usually–for a predetermined amount of time, let’s just say a year, where they take savings out of what they earn and put it into a lock box.”

This acts as a bank from which the members can take out loans for emergencies, school fees, and businesses. These loans have a small interest rate and can be paid back in time once the individual’s business is making money. The group meets once a week to contribute small amounts of money.

“One of the things that the savings group does is to help even out the income during the year so that they have some emergency funds when something comes up when they may not have money coming in on a day-to-day basis.”

While micro-enterprise loans and savings groups may have the same end goal, the beginning of each process is much different.

Micro-enterprise loans depend on the ministry’s operating budget. Savings groups don’t. “The great thing about it is that the capital comes completely from them. And we have found over the years that’s really not been a barrier to having enough money for people to get started. In fact, it’s more sustainable because after we train the people about how to start a savings groups, they’re not dependent on us giving them the capital to start it again,” Allen explains.

These principles teach Biblical financial practices that will help improve lives in the long run. An example is teaching women, where the Bible is allowed, about the Proverbs 31 woman. It is a cultural trend, often times, for women to think their husband should control the money, rather than taking care of their assets in a partnership.

Another Biblical principle stressed is for the parents to take care of their children. “It isn’t just about the finances of saving money: it’s about telling them, ‘OK, you use this to make your children’s life better. Don’t spend 30% of your income on cigarettes or alcohol,'” Allen says.

The program ends up being not only a way to produce reliable income, but also a discipleship opportunity.

FH chooses communities that are living in poverty where the leaders are willing to let them come and assess how they might help. One such community in Cambodia is the Thlat village.

A farmer named Thol and his wife were unable to pay for basic daily needs. After joining a savings group and a training program run by FH, the couple took out a loan to start a business selling fried crickets to help support themselves during the slow farming seasons. They saw an increase in income.

The couple didn’t stop at crickets, and now they raise poultry and run other various projects. The couple’s businesses are growing, giving them the dignity of being able to provide for themselves with the gifts God has given them.

So, why should you care?

Allen says, “When you’re helping to support a child through Food for the Hungry sponsorship programs, in many cases the savings groups are something that is supported with that. We’re not just helping the children directly: we’re helping their parents to be better parents in so many different ways. I mean, it’s not just about the money. We use the opportunity of having people together to do literacy training oftentimes, and training in numeracy.”

These programs help teach basic budgeting for families. “When you talk about money, you’re talking about ‘how do we make decisions about our resources,’ and that’s what you’re helping the families to do.”

You can help support this project with your prayer. Pray for many opportunities to share the love of Christ. Pray also that these projects would help change the lives of those living in poverty. If you’re interested in getting involved with FH projects, click here.