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 didn’t return home, the family worried but tried to remain hopeful. However, after days turned to weeks without correspondence, Salome knew her greatest fear had come true: her father had abandoned them. 

As an uneducated woman, Salome’s mother had limited income potential and was only able to find work weeding her neighbor’s gardens. Salome dropped out of school to help support her family as they struggled to find enough food, often going without. Eventually, Salome’s siblings dropped out, too. 

When Salome heard Zoe Empowers was starting new empowerment groups in her community, she went to the meeting and explained her situation to the facilitator. Zoe accepted Salome and her family to the program, and within three months, she received a start-up kit to open a hair salon.  

Salome was interested in hairdressing even before her father disappeared, but it wasn’t until she joined Zoe that she believed she could pursue her dream. Her passion for the trade and desperation to feed her family motivated her to run a successful business. 

For the first year, Salome shared a salon with another Zoe group member, which allowed both girls to split expenses and resources while saving money to take care of their families and make improvements at home. One of the first projects Salome completed was building a new latrine. She also added a floor, windows, roof and door to improve her home. 

After Zoe’s staff taught Salome and her group mates the importance of clean water, Salome began educating her neighbors and started a second business selling bottled water and soft drinks. She also sold hotcakes and cassava to earn extra income.

In November 2022, one year into the program, Salome heard that the Tanzania government was encouraging people to move to a new area roughly a one hour drive from her community. The planned development would include new businesses and housing. It sounded promising but risky.

Salome decided to take a leap of faith and relocate her salon business to the new development. She wanted to be the first hairdresser in the market before other salons moved in. 

The risk paid off. Salome’s business grew exponentially—so much so that other young women in the area took notice, and Salome began receiving requests to train other young women to be hairdressers. 

One trainee, Gladness, started the Zoe program one year after Salome and said that Salome inspired her. 

“Salome gave me hope,” Gladness said. “She helped me believe in myself and pushed me to do more.” Gladness said there were times when she felt like giving up, but Salome was there to remind her that the Zoe program works and encouraged her to keep attending the meetings. 

Salome’s impact on Gladness was profound but not uncommon among Zoe groups. Many successful Zoe participants often mentor younger group members. Training cannot only become a source of income for experienced participants and soon-to-be grads like Salome but also creates a robust network within the program. 

To date, Salome has trained thirteen women. “I’ve realized that I love giving back,” Salome said. “Now that I have much, I want to share it with others to experience the same success I have achieved.”

Most recently, Salome has been working on building a new home beside her original house, which she has since renovated with a new door, roof, cement floor, and windows. As a 2023 Zoe Empowers graduate, she continues to meet with her group and participate in their group project. All profits earned by the group are loaned out to its members to expand their businesses. 

“I push my group to the max,” Salome said. “We hold each other accountable by following up with each other, and this encourages us to keep going for our next dream.

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 the community—one of the few jobs available to an uneducated Maasai woman in rural Tanzania. Gladness’s father had long struggled with alcoholism and wasn’t around. 

Life turned upside down when Gladness’s mother passed away unexpectedly. Gladness hadn’t even known she was sick, and then, all at once, she was gone. Gladness, who was a teenager at the time, dropped out of school to care for her three younger siblings. The family didn’t have relatives nearby. 

Gladness assumed the only job available was farming, so she took all she was offered. She couldn’t earn enough to pay for food and keep her siblings in school, so they dropped out, too.

The family’s house, which had been in a fragile state before their mother’s death, slowly became decrepit. No floor, no windows, no roof. Gladness and her siblings patched up holes with cardboard, plastic tarps, and sheets of paper. 

Gladness had a friend in town, who had joined Zoe Empowers a year prior. As Gladness battled to survive the challenges of extreme poverty, she saw Salome, who was also caring for her siblings, grow a successful salon business. Salome gave Gladness hope and inspired her to do the same.

So, in October of 2021, when Zoe launched more empowerment groups in the community, Gladness went to the recruitment meeting. She was accepted and got her first start-up kit three months later. Gladness partnered with another group member to open a salon. The two young women split rent in a high-traffic area to build up their clientele. Before long, they could each afford to move to their own space.

With her income, Gladness re-enrolled herself and her siblings in school and restored her home to a safe, habitable condition with a new roof, door and windows. She also purchased goats and chickens to rear and sell at the market. 

Gladness is especially proud to own livestock in addition to running her salon because after she dropped out of school and before joining Zoe, she believed farming was her only future. Now, it’s merely a source of supplemental income. 

Furthermore, as a member of the Masaai tribe, she always believed she’d have to be married as a young girl and have children. Since becoming an empowered businesswoman, Gladness now understands that she can choose her own husband.

Like Salome, Gladness has become a mentor to other girls in other local Zoe groups. When her trainees ask for advice, Gladness encourages them to believe in themselves. 

“I tell them their potential is limitless,” Gladness said. “Girls especially don’t have to get married at a young age,” she added. “I tell them to stand in their position. They can do anything and succeed in it.”

Gladness’s message is important and illustrates a distinct aspect of the empowerment program: the robust Zoe network. 

Current Zoe participants always have access to upper-level participants and program graduates. Newcomers get to see their struggles and challenges reflected back to them from other youth who have already overcome them, instilling hope and faith early on in their empowerment journey. 

So far, Gladness has trained five young women to become hairdressers. Looking ahead, she would like to continue mentoring while expanding her salon business to include cosmetics. She will graduate from the program at the end of 2024.

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 an orphan, living in poverty, struggling to keep himself and his family alive. 

But, in January 2020, Timothy, then 15, joined the  Amani Kanthali empowerment group. Shortly after that, he opened a business selling bananas. When the pandemic hit, the little savings he had accrued vanished quickly, forcing him into manual labor. He feared Zoe would shutter and that he would be forgotten, left behind by another organization that failed to keep its promises. But Zoe Empowers was different. 

Timothy and his younger siblings, Emaculate and Raphael, received regular contact from Zoe throughout the pandemic. The family earned soap, a hand washing bucket, and sanitizer upon completing their health and hygiene training. Timothy recalls this gesture filling them with hope. In July 2020, Timothy reopened his business, this time selling hard-boiled eggs. He met with his group mates, participated in table banking and merry-go-round fund, and added more fresh vegetables to his store’s inventory. 

However, when a second lockdown occurred in 2021, Timothy’s momentum halted again. Government restrictions limited hours of operation, making it a challenge for Timothy to sell his vegetables. Around this time, Timothy received a Covid grant from Zoe to stay afloat. “This made me feel like God was giving me a second chance,” he recalled. “It made all the difference.”

Timothy’s business weathered the storm, but the turbulence didn’t leave much to invest at home. And so, Timothy leaned into his grandmother’s second gift, a large tree on her property. In late 2021, he cut it down and harvested the wood to build another room next to his grandmother’s home, where he and his siblings had lived since he was 12. This addition was a tremendous accomplishment for Timothy. “I feel surrounded by my grandmother inside my new home,” he said.

Timothy also submitted paperwork to regain ownership of his former home. After his father’s death and his mother fled, Timothy approached an uncle for help, but instead of offering support, the uncle stole their property. Through Zoe Empower’s child rights training, Timothy learned that his uncle broke the law. Zoe connected Timothy to local officials to report the case and is hopeful he’ll regain control of the property soon. 

Before his death, Timothy’s father strained the family’s reputation, often caught stealing and abusing others. Timothy noticed the community treats him with more respect now that he owns a store. He made friends in his empowerment group and at church. His siblings are excelling at school. Emaculate dreams of becoming a doctor, while Raphael wants to join the military.

Although his path to empowerment was riddled with challenges, Timothy, now 18, persevered, not only because Zoe Empowers gave him encouragement and strength but in memory of his grandmother. He keeps the gourd in his store, hanging from a piece of twine in the corner. Its once pale yellow flesh has turned brown like the soil, making it easy to overlook, displayed next to bright packages of coffee and tea. But whenever it catches his eye, Timothy is struck by her memory and the meaning behind her two gifts. She was right all along. His life has become richer.

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“I believe poverty is the behaviors, values and characters you’re forced into, like digging through garbage bins to find leftover food, being forced to dropout of school or not having a secure place to sleep at night. That took away my dignity. I want others to have the dignity I didn’t have.”

‒ Fridah, Graduating in December 2018 (Kenya)

Fridah vividly remembers the day she heard of her father’s death in 2013. Randomly attacked by malicious thieves on his way home from work, then 17-year-old Fridah was deeply saddened by the news, along with her mother and five siblings. With the sole provider of income gone in an instant, the already struggling family was forced to turn to begging for food to survive.

“We walked the streets, sifting through garbage cans in search of leftovers after community events,” recalled Fridah. “We had to be careful so people wouldn’t notice us and judge us.”

As the eldest child, Fridah eventually dropped out of her final year of primary school as a means of doing whatever she could to support her family. Eventually, she was hired as a nanny for an upper-class Kenyan family who agreed to pay her what is considered a fair wage for that line of work, $30 per month or $1 per day.

Even though she had a steady income, it wasn’t enough to feed the seven mouths in her household. Each day became a disheartening quest to find a meal, which was sometimes only a sweet potato to split amongst her siblings. Other days, it was someone’s trash in the garbage bins. And on the worst days, it was nothing. Fridah and her family lived this way for over three years following the death of their father. In worn, tattered clothes, feeling hungry and hopeless, Fridah was introduced to Zoe Empowers in her small village.

Although she has a living mother, Fridah is considered head of her household, like the majority of children in the Zoe Empowers program, due to her mother’s health status and inability to provide. In January 2016, she began her journey to a better future with the Faith Akui empowerment group, and within weeks, Fridah opened a small grocery kiosk in the community marketplace. She would boil dozens of eggs at night, and sell them, along with other fruits, at her stand during the day. As her business grew, she expanded her inventory to include fresh vegetables.  

Fridah began to cultivate a sense of purpose, beyond just finding a meal every day. She found strength in operating her business, serving her customers and connecting with others in Faith Akui because they, too, had faced many of the same challenges as her. For the first time since the death of her father, she didn’t feel isolated from her community, like she didn’t belong. Fridah began to feel the most powerful emotion typically absent in impoverished communities: hope.

Implementing the money management skills learned in Zoe Empowers trainings, Fridah successfully saved $200 from her grocery kiosk business in the first 18 months. She asked her working group to loan her another $200, so she could buy a plot of land to build a new house, since she and her siblings had been renting a single room to sleep in for $10/month while Fridah saved—one of many sacrifices she made for the long-term betterment of her family.

After Fridah built her house, she shifted her business from selling at a marketplace kiosk to opening a storefront shop. She opted to sell household staples, like flour and sugar, instead of fresh produce and boiled eggs. Her new store had enough space for her to further diversify her business by opening a salon.

Between selling supplies and hairdressing, Fridah successfully increased her daily earnings, but she continued to make sacrifices to save for the future. “I denied myself a lot of fun things to put money aside,” she explained. “I saved $5 each day from my supply sales and $6 each day from the salon.” Fridah joined two additional table banking groups outside of her Zoe Empowers group, giving her access to three savings accounts.

In her second year with Zoe Empowers, Fridah was selected as Ms. Zoe Empowers, a highly coveted peer selected annual award given out to one outstanding male and female in each year of the program. Fridah used her $200 winnings to invest in more inventory for her store, adding items like shoes and clothing, to make it a bonafide boutique, and she hired one employee for each business.

Now, in her final year of the Zoe Empowers program, not having to “strain” to feed her family, along with not having to sleep in the cold, ranks high on Fridah’s list of the many things she’s grateful for. She believes Zoe Empowers guided her to a place of personal independence, and it’s her responsibility to pass along her knowledge to others who are still suffering.

This fall, when four local Zoe Empowers working groups united, for what they deemed a “thanksgiving offering”, to fundraise money for another empowerment group outside of Kenya, Fridah gave a generous donation of $39 to ZOE.

Considering, only three years ago, she made $30 per month, freely giving $39 to help fund another Zoe Empowers group is nothing short of remarkable. Fridah knows, firsthand, the transformative power of the program. Playing a role in funding more groups around Africa brings her an immense amount of joy.

“I want others to feel the freedom I have: to sleep where they want, buy what they want, eat what they want,” she said. “I believe poverty is the behaviors, values and characters you’re forced into, like digging through garbage bins to find leftover food, being forced to dropout of school or not having a secure place to sleep at night. That took away my dignity. I want others to have the dignity I didn’t have.”

To pay it forward in other ways, Fridah has mentored two other girls in her community on hairdressing and entrepreneurship. She pays the school fees of another local orphan, and she’s mobilized a Zoe Empowers group in another village and currently acts as the group’s mentor—all while managing and growing her own two businesses, providing for her mother and five siblings and raising her son, Bradley, who was born right before she began the Zoe Empowers program in 2016.

Earlier this year, 22-year-old Fridah invested in another piece of land near a local sewage plant with the intent of renting the existing structure and adding more income properties to the plot to rent to plant employees in the future. Her ambition and business diversification has laid a solid foundation for life after she graduates from the Zoe Empowers program this December.  

“I feel ready because my faith in God is strong. I believe God is using me in the way I was meant to be used. If it were not for God touching our American Zoe Empowers partners, it would not be possible,” she stated.

Fridah exemplifies the perseverance, hard work and patience it takes to be successful, regardless of life’s circumstances. Had she not been given an opportunity to live out her power through Zoe Empowers, her talents would still be hiding in the shadows of poverty.

Today, we’re asking you to join Fridah and match her donation of $39 to empower five orphans for one month who also need a chance to discover their own strengths and abilities.

380 million children living in extreme poverty will rely on charity forever.
A monthly gift of $39 over 3 years empowers five orphans out of poverty. How many children can you give lasting sustainable change?

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“I believe love is the seed put in my heart to give to others. If I don’t close my eyes to suffering, God will bless me.”

‒ Gentil, 2017 Graduate in Rwanda

What a time it would be if, instead of idolizing those with big muscles, fancy cars and expensive homes, we admired those who had the exact opposite. More specifically, people who didn’t want any of the aforementioned items. All they wanted was a way to survive. To overcome the horror of their reality to live a life they believed was worth living. What if we looked up to people like Gentil, a young Rwandan boy whom you’ve never met but likely won’t forget.

When Gentil’s mother passed away from complications delivering her fourth child, a daughter whom she named Delphine, Gentil was only 11 years old. His father’s death, mere months before Delphine was born, left him the eldest man of the house. Now, without his mother’s help, he quickly became full-time caretaker and provider for his three siblings: 5-year old twins, Jean Claude and Claudine, and newborn Delphine. A profound circumstance many adults would be hard-pressed to fathom.

With little direction but intense intuition, Gentil did what he needed to do to keep his household alive. He set out into the streets of his Rwandan village, wandering and begging to local community members. He pushed bikes of crops to market and often volunteered himself for labor intensive jobs on farms to bring home whatever he could to feed his family at least one meal a day. Luckily, during this time, a family friend stepped in to care for baby Delphine, but she returned her to Gentil after three years.

Although happy to have his sister with him again, he quickly became overwhelmed with the responsibility of caring for a toddler, especially one who wouldn’t stop crying. It didn’t take long for Gentil to learn why: baby Delphine was sick. As a orphan without funds or access to proper medical care, Gentil felt useless. He inquired with others on how to maneuver the healthcare system with no avail and became desperate to help Delphine.

After years of living in poverty, Gentil joined the Zoe Empowers program in early 2015 and was immediately comforted by the community of children in his empowerment group who were just like him. For the first time in his life, he could relate with others and didn’t feel so painfully alone. His group called themselves “Intwari”, a Kinyarwanda word meaning hero.

In the first few months of the program, Gentil’s group gave him a pig to start him on his journey toward food security, the first major area of poverty Zoe Empowers covers. “I was so happy,” recalled Gentil. “I never dreamed I could have a pig.”

The Intwari group collectively purchased and traded animals amongst themselves, with help from a small grant from Zoe Empowers, which led Gentil to also acquire a hen. His hen laid eggs, which grew to be six chickens. Gentil began to sell his healthy farm animals at market and earned enough to buy new school uniforms for his siblings, in addition to supplying his family with more regular meals. And this was just four months into the Zoe Empowers program!

Surprised but motivated by his own success, Gentil took the next step in Zoe Empowers training which included classes on entrepreneurship. Running his own business would’ve seemed impossible and something only for those significantly more well-endowed than him just months before, but now, with the support of the Intwari group, he felt different. He was starting to believe in himself and his potential.

With optimism and hope, he signed up for a class teaching the skill of donut making. Using a few simple ingredients, Gentil learned he could make dozens of donuts, and the local community loved them. Profits from his donut business allowed him to invest in other commodities such as beans and rice. His small business training taught him the concept of “buy low, sell high”, so with his donut business cash, he stocked up on goods at the lowest price he could find, then he sold them for more when the demand was high.

Selling goods yielded more capital Gentil could put back into his donut business, and the cycle continued. He knew he was on to something. “It was at this time that I said goodbye to hunger,” Gentil proudly declared.

Three years after joining the Intwari group, Gentil is a 21-year old, self-sustained business owner whom four local children call “boss”. His food trading business grew exponentially over his time in the Zoe Empowers program, requiring him to hire employees to open his own supply store where beans, rice, corn meal, potatoes and sugar, amongst other items, are sold. Gentil also continues to run his donut business as well as grow vegetables to harvest and sell in his store and at the market.

“It makes me feel happy to be called ‘boss’”, explained Gentil. “It reminds me of God’s love. I use to feel neglected, but now I’m proud when I remember how far I’ve come. Being called ‘boss’ reminds me to do good regardless of what others may have done to me in the past.”

Beyond growing two businesses, Gentil has also successfully nurtured the growth of his three siblings, Claudine and Jean Claude (12) and Dalphine (7). He’s able to pay for their school fees and health insurance, two of ZOE’s major areas of focus. Together, the family eats well (3 meals per day) and actively helps other orphans in the community by paying for their medical insurance.

While Gentil has grown thousands of seeds since he started his journey to self-sufficiency, it’s the seed of love planted deeply in his heart and spirit that is perhaps the most important of them all. This seed is one Gentil has come to realize was planted by God and was always inside of him, he just couldn’t see it when he lived in the darkness of poverty. It’s this seed that has not only made him the hero of his own life, but a hero to countless others in his community.

Today, Gentil is living a life hundreds of millions of other orphans around the world believe is impossible to obtain. For just $9/month, you can help other children just like Gentil get started with a local Zoe Empowers empowerment group, so they, too, can grow their own seeds of hope, strength and love.

380 million children living in extreme poverty will rely on charity forever.

$9 a month can change that.

A monthly gift of $9 over 3 years empowers one orphan out of poverty. How many children can you give lasting sustainable change?

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“When I look at my sister’s baby, Moses, I’m overcome with joy. Zoe Empowers has helped me understand that it’s more of a blessing to care for Moses — and my sister — when I have God.” ‒ Emmanuel, 2017 Graduate in Rwanda

It’s human nature to want to run from our problems. When undesirable circumstances arise and our fight or flight instinct kicks in, often times the craving to run as fast as possible in the other direction seems significantly more appealing than facing the issue head on.

Orphans and vulnerable children living in poverty around the globe are not immune to this desire to escape.

In 2014, Emmanuel believed there was no other option for him than to just run away from his small village in Rwanda. To simply sneak out into the blackness of the night and never look back.

With seemingly no options for work in his community and no money for food, he and his special needs sister, Janine, starved regularly. Their situation seemed irreversible. His frustration and anger with his life grew stronger by the day. These feelings, he believed, could only be extinguished by starting over somewhere new.

When he learned of Zoe Empowers, he decided to join an empowerment group because he heard promising stories from program graduates. He found the success stories of children just like him inspiring, and more importantly, they helped him see that a better tomorrow was possible—without having to leave his community.

One of the first lessons that resonated with him was that of Jeremiah 29:11. “For I know the plans I have you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

Never before had he considered that God had a plan for him. He thought God’s plans were only for those who were beautiful and rich. Not him. But through the guidance of his empowerment group, he began to clearly understand that if he ran away from his problems, he would ruin God’s plan—and he worried he might upset God.

About two years into the Zoe Empowers program, Janine was abused by an anonymous community member and became pregnant. Given her significant special needs, she was ill-equipped to handle her pregnancy alone.

Although Emmanuel felt infuriated by the position Janine was forced into, after many months of working within his empowerment group and gaining tremendous traction with his career and stature within the community, he knew this was his time to step up and provide assistance to her.

Emmanuel tended to Janine throughout her pregnancy. When the time came, he delivered the baby boy, whom he named Moses. Emmanuel and Janine’s family name is Isezerano, meaning “promise”. Emmanuel believed the Bible story of Moses being found and the newly discovered promise God made in his own life perfectly suited Janine’s son.

Despite cultural norms, Emmanuel took on the role of honorary father and brings Moses everywhere with him. Beyond his daily actions, Emmanuel’s love for Moses and his well being is evident in the way he looks at him; each giggle and smile brings a twinkle to his eye. He takes complete care of both Moses and his sister including nighttime feedings and routine infant medical visits to the local pediatrician.

Now, as a 2017 Zoe Empowers graduate, Emmanuel earns a living for his small family by farming four of his empowerment group’s 50 rice plots which profits $560 annually. He also steadily works as a respected carpenter within his community. Janine no longer faces abuse from community members because Emmanuel’s achievements have secured him respect and status amongst his peers and community elders and she is closely associated with him.

Although Emmanuel is not genetically the father of Moses, caring for him and his sister has brought significant meaning and joy to his life. He’s grateful he faced his fears and didn’t run from them because he knows that if he had left his community, he would never have received God’s promises.

380 million children living in extreme poverty will rely on charity forever.

$9 a month can change that.

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Want to learn more about Emmanuel’s empowerment group? You can read more about the other group members and their rice farm project here.

“When we stand on our plots of rice, we feel resurrected. We thought we were going to die but now, we are alive.” -Samuel, 2017 Rwanda graduate, Ibyishimo Group.

Growing up in a family of six siblings without parents, Samuel often felt the pangs of hunger. On the streets of a small Rwandan village, the 22-year-old eldest child of six brothers and sisters would regularly beg for a single daily meal. Though an outsider likely wouldn’t consider a cup of mashed peas a meal, for them it was survival.

Not far from Samuel lived Emmanuel and his special needs sister, Janine. The two lived in a poorly constructed clay home that Emmanuel dreamed of escaping one day. Though he’d become accustomed to waking each morning to endure long hours of back-breaking labor in the scorching African sun, he often found himself overcome with anger and helplessness.

Like most orphans trying to survive in the complicated system of extreme poverty, these boys lived their lives day by day, meal by meal. After all, what was the point of looking forward when future days were seemingly just as grim?

Through the formation of a Zoe Empowers empowerment group in their community, Samuel and Emmanuel were united with Daniel and Nathaniel, two other local teenagers living in similar life-threatening circumstances. The foursome suddenly didn’t feel so painfully alone; they could relate to the hardships each other—and dozens of their peer group members—faced. Together, they became the Ibyishimo Group, and suddenly they began to have hope that tomorrow could be better then today.

With the help of a small micro-loan from Zoe Empowers, group members purchased rice seeds from a rural farmer and got to work – planting multiple plots of land they had acquired. Growing rice not only fulfilled their need for a staple food product, but it also served as a reliable source of income.

With each growing season came more confidence. And with more confidence came the ability for these young people to assert themselves into the community that once marginalized their existence. The community’s acceptance of their gifts and talents wasn’t instant, but as the rice farm continued to turn a profit and group members ventured into starting new businesses that catered to local needs, the concept of empowerment began to catch on. Respect for group members as leaders in the community began to take hold.

Today, the Ibyishimo Group’s rice farm operation employs more than 50 community members. Some of the Ibyishimo Group members still work their own plots, while others proudly hire out help for a fair wage.

When asked about the success of the rice farm project, Samuel said, “When we stand on our plots of rice, we feel resurrected. We thought we were going to die, but now, we are alive.”

Through the energetic demeanor and glittering eyes of Samuel and his group members, it’s clear the rice farm has produced much more than food, it has created purpose. And with purpose, has come both hope and expectation for an even better future.

Self-worth grew as group members began to utilize other skills learned through ZOE’s program. Emmanuel once worked 12-hour days to earn as little as $5 a week. With ZOE’s assistance, he attended vocational training classes and now steadily works as a carpenter, making him more than enough income to support himself, his sister, and her newborn baby. Emmanuel no longer wants to run away from his community like he once did. Today he is proud of the life he has built.

Daniel vividly remembers starving, standing on the street outside the store so he could beg for money or food from anyone who exited. Now, as a Zoe Empowers grad, he’s used the profits from his rice plots to help his brother, Ernest, open his own supply store. Daniel also works as a carpenter and proudly built a house for himself and his brother, something they both thought was a distant dream just three years ago. Next year, he hopes to marry his girlfriend, whom he describes as beautiful and brave with a big heart, and to build another house for their life together.

Nathaniel hasn’t forgotten the nights he’d awake with gut-wrenching stomach pains due to hunger and dehydration. He’d daydream about the foods he assumedly would never get to taste because he’d never have enough money to buy them. His new reality is quite the contrary. Nathaniel has dramatically expanded his business by selling cassava, a starchy food similar to that of a potato. Cassava is in high demand because it’s not regularly available in his community. With the help of his carpenter friends, Daniel and Emmanuel, he was also able to build a home where he feels safe and confident.

Unlike the other three boys, Samuel used his rice farm profits to enroll in courses at a university with the goal of becoming an electrician. As a boy who never thought he’d finish high school to being a university graduate who owns a farm and many animals, Samuel’s life, and subsequently the life of his five siblings, has radically changed.

And with it so have his beliefs. Living in a culture with deep-rooted ideas about women, Samuel has adopted a more diverse mindset since starting his journey with ZOE. “I now believe that women can do anything that men can do. They are smart like men,” he explained. “I have great respect for them. Their role in nurturing the family will have the largest impact on future generations and in the world.”

In just three years, Samuel and his groupmates have become young adults who are socially, financially and spiritually strong. They made this transformation because of the training and resources provided through Zoe Empowers at the cost of only $280 per child. By joining our monthly giving community, you can bring additional youth and children into empowerment groups so that they can leave the suffering of poverty behind and look forward to experiencing ever increasing hope and success.

380 million children living in extreme poverty will rely on charity forever.

$9 a month can change that.

It only takes $9 a month for three years to bring a child from begging for food as a way to survive to never relying on charity again. How many children’s lives will you change?

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“Ebola took loved ones from each of us. Once they went to that big white building we never saw them again.”

ZOE group, God’s Choice officially began in August 2016, only a few years after the Ebola crisis ended in Liberia. The reminders of Ebola mostly live on in the hearts and minds of those who were left behind in its wave of catastrophic destruction.

On a recent Zoe Empowers vision trip, the team of visitors met many children who had been quarantined in their homes for twenty-one days after their parents were taken to the Ebola Treatment Center. As much as we try, it is impossible to imagine any child living alone in a small room for three weeks without anyone there to console them, calm their fears or even explain what was happening.

Alone, scared, hopeless, fearful and devastated were words the team heard over and over during their visit to Kakata, Liberia.

Hope arrived on July 1, 2016, when Legacy Collective committed to creating a Zoe Empowers partnership in Liberia. By July 14th a group of over 70 orphaned and vulnerable children from Ebola had been formed. They came together and chose to call themselves, “God’s Choice”.

On July 14, 2017, they will take the time to celebrate the first anniversary of when their group formation. They believe they have become empowered by knowledge. They describe themselves:

“We are like a fishing net; we are collecting children in our community who are in need. Now we are equipped to help each other.”

A Zoe Empowers partnership includes a commitment from the community where children live. Local leaders will donate a piece of land for the children to farm as well as a place for the children to meet each week. God’s Choice group was given a large piece of land to farm that will yield a healthy harvest. But this particular piece of donated land had a special meaning. The group explained that the big white building sitting on top of the hill overlooking their farm project had once been the Ebola Treatment Center during the epidemic. Every one of them had a loved one who had been taken there and never returned. They said,

“It is like our loved ones are watching over us as we become empowered. They see that we now have a hopeful future.”

We think their future is very hopeful. It is beautiful to see a building that once held such traumatic grief, has now become a beacon of light overlooking happy days ahead.

Phillip

Phillip’s parents left behind a home when they died of Ebola.  When he joined Zoe Empowers, he learned how to put the property in his name as the legal owner.  After his group had assessed his living situation, they determined the home was in desperate need of repairs.  A plan was made by his group to request the necessary funding from Zoe Empowers for the materials to make the repairs. His new Zoe Empowers family came together and constructed the improvements to make Phillip’s home safe once again.

Phillip has a thriving coal business that his very own. He is happy that he longer has to pick coal for another person’s profit. He now makes $20 in profit for the same amount of work that paid him $1.80 when he worked for others.

Joyce

After losing both parents during Ebola, Joyce and her younger sister found themselves exploited as laborers by a woman who had agreed to take them into her care. She shared that on many days she did not think she would make it.

Today, She has a safe place to live, is enrolled in school along with her younger sister, and she dreams of someday becoming a doctor.

“I am now happy because after Ebola, I was stigmatized but now I have friends and a family!”

Evelyn

After Evelyn’s father had died when she was very young, she moved to Kakata with her siblings to live with an aunt who promised to send her to school. Instead, she used Evelyn to work long days. Even now, Evelyn has no idea where her mother is. When Ebola came, her aunt died and so did Evelyn’s only source for shelter and food. She ended up living on the streets making money by washing clothes and clearing land. She was paid .25 cents for her work, which was only enough for a cup of rice.

Evelyn is now living in a home and has the beginning of a small business. Her singing voice is as beautiful and healthy as she is.