Mr. Baltazar lives in the community of Ejido de Detiña in Acambay Mexico. Three years ago he started his sheep project.

At first, he was very disappointed because his animals were not growing and he was not earning a lot of money from them.

He became part of CHOICE’s entrepreneurs' group. He went to all the training meetings and put forth great time and effort to apply the knowledge he gained from them.

Mrs. Irene and Mr. Gregorio are producers from Ejido de Detiña in Acambay, Mexico. They had a small, but not profitable, bovine production. At times they didn’t regain the investments made and had to sell animals in the face of an emergency.

Three years ago they requested a loan from CHOICE  Mexico to buy breeding sheep. They attended workshops for entrepreneurs in animal production and, with this and their efforts, they were able to improve their production.

Harka is 51 years old and is from Lamjung, Nepal. He was born into a Dalit family. Dalit is a marginalized caste, inheriting desperate poverty and discrimination. His voice was rarely heard in the community.

Mrs. Adriana is learning how to raise swine to sell and to provide her family with nutritious food as part of a class that CHOICE Mexico is teaching.

Recently CHOICE Nepal hosted the Honorable Mrs. Bidhya Devi Bhandari, President of Nepal for the Inauguration ceremony of the Agriculture Laboratory Building at the Janakalyan Secondary School in Palung, Makwanpur, Nepal. 

The lab will benefit 1,245 students of Janakalyan Secondary School and all the farmers from the community. Students will learn new techniques, and the farmers can test the quality of soil and as well as disease in plants. Agriculture is the main source of income in Palung. Twenty thousand families in Palung are engaged in vegetable farming due to the proximity of Kathmandu which gives them a broader customer base.

Consider a life-changing moment you experienced. Who was there? What was it like? How was the course you were traveling altered? On my most recent expedition to the small community of Pampa de los Silva, Peru, I met a cohort of women whose lives were changed by a small group of ducks. 

Kritika Poudel is one such a person. As a wife and mother, she was no stranger to giving all she could, however, it was not always enough. At age 17, Kritika’s parents arranged her marriage to a boy from a neighboring village in Nepal. 

One day isn’t enough. National Chocolate Day is only one day a year. Luckily every day you can enjoy premium chocolate from farmers in partnership with CHOICE. And when you purchase this chocolate, a portion of the profit provides these farmers access an agricultural specialist.  

Maria raises and sells ducks to support her family. Maria became a mom at 16 years old. She speaks of the discrimination due to being pregnant at such a young age. However, despite the suffering and the financial problems her husband Elmer have a strong marriage. 

Sikaab’e  is a state of the art technical school and it is the only one of its kind in the Polochic Region and provides education and training for farmers and high school students ages 14-18. Increased education and vocational training gives the locals the opportunity to stay in the community, to find a better job, or to create a business. Appropriately named, Sikaab’e means “Seek Your Path” in  Q’eqchi’ and encourages entrepreneurship and innovation.