Where We Work
Across Africa The Hunger Project's epicentre strategy has expanded to 103, providing 3 million people with new opportunities for better health, education, nutrition and income. This strategy has proven effective in Benin, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ghana, Malawi, Mozambique, Senegal and Uganda.
The Hunger Project in:
Benin
is working in 12 epicentres
Burkina-Faso
is working in 15 epicentres
Ethiopia is working in 5 epicentres
Ghana is working in 37 epicentres
Malawi is working in 7 epicentres
Mozambique is working in 2 epicentres
Senegal is working in 17 epicentres
Uganda is working in 8 epicentres
All of the above epicentres are at various stages of evolution with the four phases. These four phases are phase 1 is mobilising, phase 2 is the tipping point, phase 3 is progress on all fronts and phase 4 is self-reliance. At the end of each phase there is a segue - a level of development momentum which makes possible the next phase.
An epicentre is a cluster of 10 to 15 villages within a 10km radius, with a population of between 10,000 - 20,000 people. These people work together to help meet their basic needs. The centrepiece of the epicentre strategy is a building that houses the community's programs for health, education, food security and economic development.
The African Women Food Farmer Initiative (AWFFI) is for women food farmers to become economic players, decision-makers, planner, entrepreneurs, powers in their own lives and in the life of Africa. This initiative consists of training, credit and savings designed to economically empower women food farmers. As of the end of 2007 the cumulative loan amount reached was US$5,702,226 disbursed to 95,326 partners, with the average loan of US$60.
The goal of the AWFFI microfinance program in each epicentre is to assist partners in forming an officially recognised, women-led rural bank. The Hunger Project is the first organisation in Africa to achieve this - to empower rural women to make the journey from illiteracy to meeting the requirements for bank certification. These steps include:
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Successful participation in the AWFFI Direct Credit Program for two to three years
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Demonstrated ability to mobilise significant savings
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Completion of training and passing exams by the women who become the trustees of the bank
In Bangladesh we mobilise grassroots action for a self-reliant future, as a volunteer movement in all 64 districts of the country.
Volunteer leaders are trained and then they organise their communities around strategic priorities which will provide income and opportunity to all, while addressing the social conditions that give rise to hunger.
The Vision Commitment and Action Workshop (VCAW) is the starting point of The Hunger Project Bangladesh's molibisation campaign. In the workshop, villagers create a vision of a new future. They discover that this vision is achievable and affordable, they commit to achieving it and they formulate a campaign of immediate action. More than 2 million people have attended this workshop to date.
In India The Hunger Project continues to strengthen the leadership of the elected women leaders in the Panchayats so that they are able to fight hunger, poverty and injustice in their villages. The Hunger Project has built capacities of more than one million elected women. These women are now exercising their leadership and impacting change in their villages, affecting the lives of 6.5 million people in rural India.
To facilitate the leadership of these women leaders in each of their five year election tenures, The Hunger Project India also focuses on training through running needs workshops, facilitating the formation of federations and actively strengthening women's empowerment in the election process in the states that are going for elections.
The Hunger Project’s work in Latin America is based on the understanding that the greatest concentrations of hunger and poverty are in rural indigenous communities. While all indigenous people are more likely than others to be disadvantaged, indigenous women suffer double discrimination - because they are indigenous and because they are women.
The Hunger Project works in 3 countries in Latin America. They are in Bolivia, Mexico and Peru.
In Australia, we educate and raise awareness about the issues of chronic, persistent hunger and its solution by the empowerment of indigenous people. Our work is to give individuals the opportunity to invest and become authentic partners with people working to end their own hunger.