Dear Friend,

With another year ending and a new one beginning, I find myself thinking often about community and how we gather and come together. In the book The Art of Gathering, Priya Parker reminds us that when we gather, the focus should be on the people involved and on creating experiences that are meaningful and human‑centered. This is one of the reasons I love CAUSE Canada’s work so deeply. Our desire is to listen, learn, and pay attention to how people can be brought together in ways that lead to long‑term, sustainable change. You are an important part of our CAUSE Canada community, and I am grateful for you and for the way you show up with generosity, compassion, and a belief in solutions led by the people closest to the challenges.

At CAUSE Canada, we continually see that meaningful, lasting change grows out of strong community leadership. In Sierra Leone, this comes to life through groups like the Haldiforti Disabled People’s Organization. Led by women from three neighbouring communities, this group gathers regularly to support one another, share knowledge, and work together to strengthen their livelihoods. By coming together around a shared purpose, these women have built trusted relationships, increased their agricultural skills, and taken collective responsibility for improving food security in their communities. Their leadership shows how intentional gathering can create resilience, dignity, and lasting change.

In Honduras, bringing people together means strengthening the relationships and systems that help women and girls to be safe. Our local Honduran team continues to focus on building community networks to prevent violence, while also working alongside local community governments to increase their capacity to support women in entering the workforce. By fostering coordination and shared responsibility, communities are becoming better equipped to create safer environments and expand opportunities for women and girls’ participation in the community and in development.

In Guatemala, this coming year, we are working to listen closely to parents and community leaders to better understand the barriers that are keeping girls out of school. By creating spaces for conversation and collaboration, we are aiming to support communities to explore the importance of girls’ education and identify practical ways to keep girls in school. In this newsletter we share a wonderful story from our Microfinance Program, but the story would be completely different if communities and families valued girls’ education. I am hopeful that this new year will bring families and leaders in Guatemala together with a shared purpose that helps education for everyone become something that is important, protected, and sustained by the entire community.

This spirit of connection extends beyond the countries where we work with people living in extreme poverty. Here in Canada, I am continually inspired by the community that surrounds CAUSE Canada. Our She is the Change community is one powerful example of what intentional gathering can achieve. If you are part of this community, you are standing alongside girls and women around the world, supporting them as they build confidence, leadership, and the ability to be part of and create change in their own communities. Your belief in their potential truly matters.

Your support is creating real and lasting impact. Every story I hear from the field and every connection made through our community here in Canada reminds me that change is strongest when it is shared. Thank you for being part of the CAUSE Canada community and for helping to build a more just and hopeful future together.

With gratitude,

In the Falaba District of Sierra Leone, the power of community is taking root in a very tangible way. In the Dogoliya area, a group of women have come together with a shared purpose, proving that when people gather intentionally, they can strengthen not only their own lives but the future of their communities.

Led by Chairlady Isatu Sankoh*, the Haldiforti Disabled People’s Organization began sixteen years ago as a small group of women supporting one another in the Dogoliya community. Today, the group brings together women from three communities, Dogoliya, Hamdaia, and Kabala. With 21 committed members, most of whom are living with disabilities, the women meet regularly, rotating locations so that everyone remains connected. These gatherings have become spaces for learning, encouragement, and collective decision‑making.

In 2025, CAUSE Canada saw an opportunity to invest in this group to help them grow in their leadership and economic development. What began as a program by CAUSE Canada to improve children’s nutrition has now become a catalyst for community collaboration. As Chairlady Isatu explains, “The school feeding project brought us together as a farmers’ club and gave us a shared mission.”

Through CAUSE Canada’s school feeding program, the women received training in climate‑smart agriculture and access to improved seeds suited to local conditions. In return, they began working together to supply food locally for the school feeding program – earning both a small income from the community as well as helping end malnutrition and improve school attendance and success for children in the community. By signing a formal agreement, the group stepped into a reliable partnership with the community school, and with CAUSE Canada that strengthened trust, accountability, and cooperation among members.

The impact has been incredible. Children are now receiving meals at school, and the women are seeing increased harvests – improving food security for their communities, creating a dependable source of income for women living with a disability, and deepening their sense of shared responsibility and community. By organizing locally and supporting one another, the women are building resilience that will last well beyond any one project.

“We are stronger because we work together,” Isatu shares. “This project has brought real change to our lives and renewed hope for our communities.”

The School Feeding Program is a holistic, sustainable approach to helping improve nutrition for primary school students in some of the most impoverished areas of Sierra Leone. By building and developing cooperative female farming groups such as the Haldiforti Disabled People’s Organization and working closely with schools, CAUSE Canada is helping communities to solve malnutrition and increase school participation and success.

*Name has been changed

Valentina Reyes* is a general physician, wife, and mother living in Santa Bárbara, Honduras. In her role at a local healthcare unit, she regularly encountered women and girls experiencing sexual and gender-based violence. These experiences were not isolated incidents, but reflections of deeply rooted inequality and insecurity in the community. Although Valentina recognized the harm violence was causing to families and livelihoods, she often felt constrained by fear, social norms, and the belief that intervening went beyond her professional role.

Violence against women and girls undermines their health, limits their opportunities, and weakens entire communities. When women are unsafe, they are less able to work, care for their families, or participate as leaders. Poverty deepens when silence and fear prevent action.

Through CAUSE Canada Honduras training workshops on sexual and gender-based violence, Valentina found both clarity and community. The training created a safe space for healthcare workers to learn together, share experiences, and understand violence not as a private issue, but as a community responsibility. Valentina began to reflect on past cases and realized how many opportunities existed to support women and girls earlier, more safely, and more effectively.

Equipped with new knowledge and supported by a growing network of trained professionals, Valentina gained the confidence to act. She learned how healthcare services can be a critical entry point for safety, healing, and leadership. When women receive respectful care, accurate information, and clear referral pathways, they are better positioned to protect themselves, support their families, and contribute economically and socially.

Today, Valentina is a catalyst for change within her healthcare unit. She actively encourages her colleagues to strengthen responses to survivors, improve psychosocial support, and coordinate with local authorities and protection services. She educates women about their rights, offers personalized counseling, and helps ensure that survivors are not left to navigate danger and trauma alone.

By fostering awareness, trust, and collective responsibility, Valentina is helping to build a safer community where women and girls are seen as valuable, capable leaders. Her work demonstrates that ending poverty requires more than income. It requires safety, dignity, and strong community systems that allow women and girls to thrive.

Valentina’s journey reflects the heart of CAUSE Canada’s approach. When communities are equipped, when women are supported to lead, and when safety is prioritized, lasting change becomes possible.

*Name has been changed

Ana Gómez* grew up knowing poverty not as an idea, but as a daily reality. As a girl in rural Guatemala, her dreams of going to school were quietly set aside. While her brothers were given the chance to study, Ana was expected to remain at home, caring for younger siblings, tending animals, and eventually working long, exhausting days on the farm. From an early age, she learned that survival required sacrifice, and that women were often asked to give more while receiving less.

Marriage brought companionship and love, but it did not lift the weight of poverty. Ana and her husband worked tirelessly to provide for their ten children, often with very little to rely on except their labor and faith. Even while pregnant and caring for several young children, Ana continued working to ensure her family had enough to eat. Life was marked by perseverance, not security.

Everything changed again when Ana lost her husband. His death left not only an emotional void, but also deep uncertainty about how she would continue to care for her family, including her youngest son who lives with a disability. For a time, grief overwhelmed her and the small family agricultural nursery that had sustained them began to die.

It was through community that Ana found her footing again.

In 2009, Ana joined CAUSE’s Microfinance Program. What began as a modest loan became something far greater. The program connected her to other women facing similar struggles and offered not charity, but trust. Together, they formed savings and loan groups rooted in accountability, mutual support, and shared responsibility. Ana did not just participate. She led. She helped build and strengthen groups in her community, inviting other women to step forward, learn together, and believe in their own capacity.

With each carefully managed loan, Ana made deliberate choices. She invested first in avocado production, then expanded into poultry, pigs, and eventually cattle. She avoided over-borrowing and focused on steady growth. Over time, her efforts paid off. Ana was able to purchase land in her own name, a powerful milestone for a woman who once had no control over her future.

Today, Ana is not only providing for her family, she is shaping its future. Her daughters have followed her example, learning that education, planning, and perseverance can break cycles of poverty. In her community, she is respected as a woman who leads with humility and wisdom, someone who proves that change does not happen alone, but together.

CAUSE Canada did not simply provide Ana with capital. It helped build an opportunity where women support one another, make informed decisions, and grow together in confidence. Through this community, Ana reclaimed her sense of worth and agency.

“I am a strong, brave, and very valuable woman,” Ana says.

Her life stands as a testament to what becomes possible when women are trusted, when communities are strengthened, and when poverty is met not with handouts, but with opportunity, dignity, and shared hope.

*Name has been changed

In the communities of Sarakoh and Bendukura, something powerful is happening around school kitchens. Mothers’ Clubs, community groups that have long been the backbone of helping children to go to school and providing school lunches, are evolving into inclusive Parent Support Groups that bring families together in new and inspiring ways.

For the first time, fathers and male guardians are beginning to step alongside mothers to prepare meals, collect firewood, and care for school kitchens. What was once seen as “women’s work” is becoming shared work. Through community dialogue and sensitization, men’s roles as caregivers are becoming normalized, easing the burden on women and strengthening family and community bonds.

These mixed-gender cooking teams are doing more than sharing the workload. They are improving efficiency, encouraging learning around nutrition and hygiene, and modeling cooperation for the children watching them every day. The result is a school feeding program that is more sustainable, schools that are stronger with students who are ready to learn – not just hungry – and a powerful example of how equality benefits everyone.

Highly valued as local leaders, the Mothers’ Clubs are working closely with CAUSE Canada in Sierra Leone and with schools to plan nutritious menus, supply fresh produce, maintain school gardens, and share learning through communities of practice. Their commitment ensures that school feeding programs are not just sustained, but strengthened by inclusive, community-led action.

Because of your support, Mothers’ Clubs can continue to empower families, nourish children, and build resilient communities.

This project is funded by Canadians like you in partnership with CAUSE Canada, ECOWAS and AECID in the framework of ECOWAS PMAI-AO.

A heartfelt thank you to our generous monthly supporters who believe She is the Change. Because of your commitment, women and girls are becoming powerful catalysts for change in their communities. In places like Sierra Leone, classrooms are transforming as children come ready to learn because Mothers’ Clubs are providing nutritious school meals.   

Monthly giving allows CAUSE Canada to plan with confidence, invest in sustainable solutions, and reduce administrative costs—ensuring more resources go directly toward unlocking opportunity and potential.

If you are not yet a monthly donor, and you want to invest in change, consider joining our She is the Change community. Stand alongside strong, hopeful, and fearless women and girls as they create brighter futures for themselves, their families, and their communities—month after month.