For 60 years, the Sisters of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary (SSHJM) have lived and worked in the Mbala District of Zambia’s Northern Province, where most people depend on agriculture as their main source of livelihood. Many of the households they work with live in chronic poverty, earning barely enough income to sustain themselves.

Misean Cara supports the SSHJM Households in Distress (HID) project that aims to bolster the food security and household earnings of 400 families, by training people in farming as a business and better agricultural methods. By transitioning to climate-smart approaches such as growing heat and drought resistant crops, harvesting rainwater for irrigation and planting trees next to fields for shade, villagers are able to increase crop yields and sell the surplus for income while keeping sufficient food for nutritious family consumption.  

Beauty Nanyangwe, divorced and the guardian of her two nephews, struggled to support her small family with the income from poorly paid piece work. Beauty enrolled in the Households in Distress project (SSHJM-HID), which trained her in farming as a business. She received essential farming supplies and equipment and now grows a variety of crops such as beans, soya beans, maize, ground nuts and sweet potatoes.  

Recently remarried, Beauty has taken the profits from her farming activities to build a new, iron roofed house, outfitted with a solar panel to run an indoor lighting system. She has invested in two oxen and a plough to boost the productivity of her new banana orchard and also to lease to other farmers in her area for extra income. “I really thank Misean Cara and the SSHJM-HID Programme for changing my life. In the past, I could only manage to eat one meal but now, I am able to eat three meals a day. I am now able to employ some people to help me with my farming activities, enabling me to have more time to build up my off-farm business activities of selling eggs and cooking oil.”