SEED Livelihood Network has recently started working with two new groups that won’t produce anything that reaches the US market. This is an exciting critical step on our way to being a more robust network for sustainable livelihoods.

A group in Cameroon is eager to start a business centered on a cassava grinding machine. SEED is helping the group in a very minimal way, by asking questions to make sure that they’ve thought through the financial possibilities — to ensure the effort is sustainable — and that there are contingency plans in case the machine breaks or the current leaders leave the work. The main purpose of this work will be to raise money to pay the rents on church properties in Muyuko, freeing the pastors to focus on their ministries.

Another group involves widows with children in the Philippines. The group already has a couple of widows with pigs they are raising to sell, and this model has worked well enough that the group wants to purchase more pigs. The purpose here is to enable the widows to pay for their children to attend school, moving toward better lives in the next generation.

We are working with our finance and technology teams to enable you to donate directly online to groups such as these. For now, if you’d like to support this effort, click the Donate to SEED button and add a comment and we’ll make sure the funds get to the right place.