As the child of a single mother who struggled to make ends meet, Rosalie was extremely vulnerable to exploitation in the community where she was growing up. When she was only 15 years old, she was forcibly recruited into the army. She said: “I was in the battlefield with my baby on my back. I walked with a child in my left hand.”

When she eventually managed to leave the army as a young adult, she came to the overwhelming realisation that she had missed out on socialisation skills and the education that would allow her to obtain work and income under normal civilian life. Thankfully, Caritas Australia’s support of the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (CAFOD) and Caritas Bukavu, allowed Rosalie to enroll in several educational and training programs designed to help people in similar positions to her to gain meaningful employment and diversify their income sources. Now, she passes her skills onto other women in her area. She remarked: “Today I have already initiated two women from our groups to sell used shoes. They will buy them in Goma and resell them in Bukavu.”

After her husband passed away, Sita, 47, became the sole breadwinner for her family of four. Nepal is one of the least developed countries in South Asia. Thus, she struggled to make ends meet and was stigmatised for being a female widow. However, she knew the only way forward was to persist. “If I think that, being a single woman, I am weaker than others and hesitant to work, then I can't move ahead and will not be able to achieve anything in life… Instead, we should work harder to prove ourselves,” she said.

Sita joined the Livelihoods and Resilience Program supported by Caritas Australia and our partner, Caritas Nepal, where she received training to improve her agricultural skills and learned how to raise and care for livestock. Between 2021 and 2022, the program helped 3,221 people increase their food security. 

Oliva enrolled in literacy and numeracy classes as part of Caritas Australia’s A+ program, run by our local partner, Diocese of Mbulu Development Department (DMDD).

Her low family income growing up meant that she never had the opportunity to attend school, and as an adult unable to read, write or count, she felt ashamed. In Tanzania, 22 percent of females aged 15 and above face illiteracy (World Bank, 2021). Women in Tanzania also take on an unequal burden of household tasks.

Oliva works in a kiosk and does farming to make ends meet, but was losing money due to her innumeracy. “As an adult, people used to take advantage of me because I couldn’t count, I was operating my business at a great loss and was not in a position to save,” she said.

Through the program, Oliva learned numeracy and literacy skills, and passed those skills onto other local women who were too embarrassed to attend classes. Closing the gap in literacy for women is crucial to ending the cycle of poverty for future generations. Oliva remarked: “Education has enabled me to come closer to my children, as we do homework together, with an increase in the family bond.”