Maria Fabiola Churuchumbi Sandoval lives in a small village in Ecuador where two or three families live together in one-room adobe houses. Each family has a plot of land that has been passed down as a heritage of their ancestors. Fabiola and her community members in the village cultivate the land for harvesting, using what they grow to feed their families. When they have extra, they sell it in local markets or exchange it with other families.

Life can be tricky when you’re living in extreme poverty. Everything seems like an uphill battle. The expense of education and the time that it takes away from household chores is often a stumbling block. This is particularly true for girls.

If you live in the poverty belt in Guatemala, and you are one of the lucky ones to graduate from primary school, there is nowhere close to continue your education, and the cost can be prohibitive.

However, in 2009 CHOICE Humanitarian opened the Nacional Instituto Telesecundaria Basic Educación opened, and that was a game changer. Serving students from 12 to 16 years old.

The outpouring of generosity and concern for the people of Nepal after the April 25th 7.8 earthquake has truly been inspirational. Many people have benefited from the donations and the warm wishes, and we are grateful for all of them. This blog is a brief overview of the amazing work that CHOICE staff and volunteers have accomplished since the earthquake that destroyed so much of Nepal. For a more detailed update, join us at our Journeys Gala on September 25 at the Rail Event Center to meet Bishnu Adhikari, Nepal In-Country Director, and hear a personal account of the earthquake and the rebuilding to date.

Clean water saves lives. Women and children spend up to 4 hours a day collecting water. The journey, which could include encounters with dangerous animals or men, can be as dangerous as the quality of the water. And this taken away from education and economic development.

In the present, water has been problematic around the world, becoming a highly important topic worldwide. Some of these factors, water pollution being the most common, regarding the cities and the over exploitation of it, can reach the point of leaving many communities without any water. Case in point, the communities in Mexico. The total worldwide requirement of water reaches 4 billion liters per year and natural sources of this precious liquid cannot meet the demand.

Mwenda Ngonyo is the 6^th born in a family of 9. Three brothers and six sisters. Her parents are both alive but very old and cannot support her education. Mwenda Ngonyo completed her primary education in the year 2013.  She was eligible to continue on to Secondary school, but unfortunately she could not pay her school fees. She was forced to leave school.

CHOICE has been working for 33 years with people who live on less than $1.25 a day helping them create their own path out of poverty. CHOICE has been working in remote villages in Nepal for over 15 years. Currently, we are working on a program called Nepal LIFE that will help Nepal to become the first developing country in the world to end extreme poverty. We are based in the Lamjung District, the epicenter of the deadly quake, where we work in 180 villages. Many of these rural areas have not been accessed for any earthquake relief. Those that have, paint a desperate picture.

According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), education that is both relevant and purposeful has the power to transform lives.

Kirti Gurung lives in Karapu, a mountainous village of the Lamjung district in Nepal. Her husband Hom works in the Gulf countries as a laborer, barely making enough to meet the family’s daily expenses. He is one of 3.5 million Nepalese enduring very poor working conditions in order to ensure their family’s survival. He visits his family once every two years.

On February 1st CHOICE Humanitarian was awarded a coveted 4-star rating from Charity Navigator for sound fiscal management and a proven commitment to accountability and transparency. This is our third consecutive 4-star rating. Read the full report here on Charity Navigator.