Zoe awakens Salome’s spirit and ignites her purpose
The day Salome’s father disappeared is one she’ll never forget. She and her two younger siblings had gone to school. Their mother was tending to the small home the family of five shared, while their father provided for the household. This pattern of life resembled many other families living in rural Tanzania. When Salome’s father […]
Gladness empowers young girls to claim their rights.
As a child, Gladness dreamed of being a hairdresser. When she wasn’t in school, she often hung around the salons in her neighborhood, observing the shop owners. Sometimes, they’d even let her help with small, easy chores, which always seemed big and important to Gladness. Gladness’s mother worked in the fields with other women in […]
Zoe youth donate 270 textbooks to local school to commemorate Day of the African Child
In honor of the Day of the African Child, five Zoe Empowers groups united to donate 270 textbooks to Chimungu Full Primary School. The five empowerment groups, which consist of over 130 orphaned and vulnerable households from Chimungu region, collectively raised MK1,323,000 from a recent maize harvest to buy the books. The donated books include […]
From Program Member to Program Facilitator
Manley is no stranger to grief and hardship. After losing his mother in 2006 and then his father in 2008, he went to live with his aunt and uncle. Manley’s aunt used brutal ways of parenting: shouting, beating, corporal punishment, and food deprivation. She depleted him of the little confidence he had left. But still, […]
Timothy and His Giving Tree
Timothy’s grandmother gave him two gifts before she passed away. The first was a small gourd, meant to symbolize giving. The gourd only darkened if he gave to others. “The darker the gourd, the richer his life will be,” she told him. At the time, Timothy didn’t believe he had anything to give. He was […]
10 Reasons Zoe Empowers is Unlike Other Children’s Charities
A new door opens for Faith
Faith still remembers the day she knocked on her uncle’s door. It wasn’t long after the death of her parents. She was fifteen, and her younger brother, Martin, was eight. They hadn’t eaten in several days, and Faith was beginning to fear they wouldn’t survive on their own. After a few seconds, the uncle’s new […]
Risper rises up to challenge gender bias
After three years of running her own grocery business, Risper has a system. At a market in rural Kenya, she piles tomatoes and green peppers into neat, heaping rows. She adds onions and papaya to the table then arranges stacks of cilantro before chopping cabbage and lettuce to sell in individual bags. Across the aisle, […]
From Hopelessness to Hope, Clarisse tells her story.
The sun was almost set when Clarisse climbed up the mango tree. Warm tears traced her cheeks as she processed what she was about to do. She had no choice, she believed and only wanted a way to stop the pain. Since her parents and eldest brother went to prison a few years ago, Clarisse’s […]
Reversing a Cultural Narrative
When Sangavi was born, her parents considered her a curse. The firstborn daughter in an Indian culture overly concerned with producing male offspring, Sangavi was a disappointment and thought to be a considerable burden. So, Sangavi’s parents did what most other Indian parents would do: They conceived again, this time saying extra prayers for a […]