According to the World Bank, 44 million people from the developing world have been pushed into extreme poverty of the past eight months. President of the World Bank, Robert Zoellick, says that "Global food prices are now at dangerous levels and it is clear that recent food price rises are causing pain and suffering for poor people around the globe."

The Bank's food price index increased by 15% between October 2010 and January 2011 and this has pushed up inflation throughout much of Asia and Latin America. For the moment, however, Sub-Saharan Africa has been spared much of this trauma. Good harvests and the consumption of locally produced staple foods have helped to protext Africa's poor from the ravages of high inflation.

A return to traditional foods in Africa helps tremendously to diminish the continent's dependence upon imported foodstuff. Instead of eating Corn Flakes, people can eat maize porridge - at 1/30th the cost for the same number of calories. Africans enjoy similar financial benefit when they eat locally grown millet or rice.

CAUSE Canada has long been a promoter of both African pride and the consumption of local produce. CAUSE Canada has initiated vegetable gardens in each of the 15 primary school supported by the CAUSE Kids Sierra Leone program. All of the children in these schools receive a daily hot meal supplemented with locally grown rice and vegetables.

The CAUSE Kids feeding program has numerous beneftits. Children are fed during the school day, enabling them to better deal with the challenge of learning while freeing parents from the financial burden of providing their children with food. This is particularly siginificant with respect to diminishing the obstacles associated with getting the African girl-child off the farm and into the classroom. Meanwhile, children are being taught innovative and environmentally friendly agriculture techniques for local crops, putting African culture back into agriculture. An additional benefit of this program has been the adoption of new agricultural methods by local farmers who have witnessed the impressive farming success of school children.

CAUSE Kids is successfully promoting the cost effectiveness and wisdom of eating local produce. It is also honouring traditional dishes and celebrating African culture while at the same time helping approximately 5,000 Sierra Leonean children grow up well nourished, pesticide-free, and food-price-inflation-proof!

"Are you a wise and faithful servant of the Lord? Have I given you the task of managing my household, to feed my children day by day? Blessings on you if I return and find you faithfully doing your work!" (Matt. 24: 45-47)

CAUSE Kids-supported schools in Sierra Leone have as many girls as they have boys. This has never before happened in Koinadugu District! More and more Canadians are supporting CAUSE Kids, and that means more and more students in Sierra Leone are benefiting!

In February, CAUSE Kids was awarded a 2-year, $100,000 grant to expand its Peer Literacy program in Sierra Leone! Through this program, CAUSE Canada helps committed female graduates the CAUSE Kids program to continue into secondary school. In return, they tutor primary school girls who are struggling to finish their assignments. The grant comes from 60 Million Girls, a Canadian foundation committed to achieving gender parity in primary education, globally. Thank you 60 Million Girls!

CAUSE Kids also broke ground this month on 3 new primary schools in northern Sierra Leone with the help of Canadian donors. The children of Heremakono, Senekedugu, and Kathombo will soon have the opportunity to gain a primary education in their hometowns!

 I'm writing this with less than one week left in Guatemala. Faith and I have started saying our goodbyes and taking even more pictures than usual to remember our time here. It's hard to believe that next week I will be in snowy, freezing cold Calgary where everyone will be speaking English and where I will be just a regular person rather than a 'gringa'. Although I'm excited to go home to see my family and friends (and to have an indoor shower and toilet) I will miss the Guatemalan way of life and, in particular, the people I have met.

It feels like it was just yesterday when I was sitting in my mom's house, bored and not knowing what to do with my life. I applied for a CAUSE internship not expecting to hear anything back, but was almost immediately contacted for an interview and less than three weeks later was on a plane bound for Guatemala. Although I was extraordinarily excited when I was offered the internship I was also scared out of my mind and had moments when I thought I was crazy to be going (or maybe it was more my family and friends who thought I was crazy).

These past eight months have been life-changing and an experience that I will never forget. It has been my first real international development work experience and I feel like I have learned way more than I have been able to contribute, but that was to be expected, really. I'll admit that I'm a little bit worried about what will happen when I go back to Canada. Will I be able to find valuable work, will I be able to integrate back into my life at home? Honestly, I think I will end up visiting family and friends for the first couple of months and then I will get restless and feel the urge to engage meaningfully with another part of the world. Whatever I end up doing, I know that this experience will stay with me always.

Since returning to Canada, Jessica has been working on the Canadian Public Health Association's 100th Anniversary exhibitions in Ottawa. CPHA is Canada's foremost independent voice in public health locally and internationally. Jessica has also been dedicating her time to building a website to promote international travel and volunteer opportunities (www.ridingthebuses.com). She hopes to be working abroad again by the end of this year.

Ask a woman in West Africa or Central America what she wants from NGOs like CAUSE Canada and she will speak of her children. She will identify education, healthcare, and clean water for the good they provide to her family rather than herself. When women seek out CAUSE Canada's microfinance program they do so to more confidently pay for their children's school fees, their parents' medical bills, and more nutritious food for their families.

Because of this - and because maternal mortality is 40 times higher in Guatemala and Honduras, and 300 times higher in Sierra Leone, than in Canada - the greatest fear for women borrowing money is that they will die and the debt burden will be passed on to their grieving, income-deprived families.

That's why CAUSE Canada microfinance programs provide their clients with the Life Insurance Fund (LIF). By paying 1% of the amount they are borrowing, clients are guaranteed that, should they pass away during the loan repayment period, the outstanding balance will be 100% forgiven. CAUSE Canada loan officers will still visit the family, but instead of demanding repayment they offer condolences and as much as 50% of the loan amount to helo cover funeral expenses. True to their selfless reputation, 100% of our clients have opted into the LIF program.

Carefully designed initiatives like the LIF can turn a potential liability into a small security for clients' families, and help microfinance do what it is supposed to: improve the lives of individuals, families, and communities.

• International Development Research Council (www.idrc.ca)
• Canadian Council for International Cooperation (www.ccic.ca)
• Alberta Council for Global Cooperation (www.acgc.ca)
• United Nations Human Development Report (www.hdr.undp.org)
• New Internationalist (www.newint.org)
• The Guardian's Global Development News (www.guardian.co.uk/global-development)
• Hesperian Foundation (www.hesperian.org)
• 100-Mile Diet (www.100milediet.org)
• The Story of Stuff Project (www.storyofstuff.com)