Mario Keni

Adama (8) lives in Bounganou in the coastal region of San Pedro in Côte d’Ivoire, where many people spend their lives battling the cycles of poverty and inequality they were born into. His father abandoned his pregnant mother before Adama was born.

Anowara lives in rural Bangladesh, 360km from the capital, Dhaka. Her story highlights the many hardships faced by disadvantaged women in this country.

In the rural province of Ninh Thuan, parents, caregivers and farmers are trained on nutrition, child care and household food security thanks to the SDG Fund program. One of them is Chamaléa Thi Cuc.

19-year-old David Israel lives in Kaduna, Nigeria. He is well aware of the difficulties many farmers face in West Africa, like the constant threat of the moth “Tuta absoluta” or the decreasing prices of the tomato productions.

Dora Alicia Pineda is a "family demonstrator" who has become a local reference on how to effectively administrate resources for small businesses, like the micro-entrepreneurship of birds he runs in Las Vueltas, El Salvador.

Esmeralda Barrios (46) is one of the leaders of the "Mothers Counselors", a network of volunteers who joined forces against child malnutrition in rural San Marcos, Guatemala.

Fatin Anani, a local entrepreneur in Palestine, discovered the collective power of local women's cooperatives to better promote her products in commercial markets.

Iese Mata’ia is a proud "organic warrior" from Samoa who has learned how to produce food through more sustainable techniques.

Ila Robale is one of the beneficiaries of the rural women economic empowerment joint programme in the Oromia region of Ethiopia. Her husband died 20 years ago, leaving her to raise five children on her own.

The story of Inalvys Bueno (40), resident of Santiago de Cuba, is that of a strong woman who, like many others, is managing to cope with the drought by keeping the crops of the fields alive in one of the most affected neighborhoods since 2015.

At the age of 18, Kazijya Kila dropped out of secondary school in Donge Mnyimbe, Zanzibar, due to her pregnancy. She got married and also had her first born son, but life was tough for her as a new mother with no job or any other source of income.

Martha Timana Imbachi (23) is a local student in El Cauca, a rural region in the Colombian Massif, one of the greatest natural sites in Colombia and a zone heavily affected by the armed conflict.

Nancy, a single mother who lives with her grandmother, mother, sister and nephews in the town of Zuleta, smiles when she is asked about the “1,000 Days” project for food and child nutrition in Ecuador.

Quinoa producer Benjamina “Nina” Gonzalo (52) struggled for years to make a living. She was among thousands of poor smallholder farmers in the Ayacucho and Puno regions of Peru who were unable to benefit from rising global demand for the “super grain”.

Kono District in eastern Sierra Leone has the most productive mineral sector in the country, but revenue was not being invested in local development or in creating jobs. Paramount Chief Paul Ngabba Saquee V joined the SDG Fund conversations to change the situation.

Regina Sosa is the President of the Toro Kangué Community Savings Group, that is helping women, indigenous people and peasants to have access, for the first time, to a savings account.

For Rene Celespara, mayor of the town of Bobon, programs and projects on water, sanitation and hygiene should remain a priority even beyond the end of the SDGFund’s iWASH program.

Community leader Rosse Mary Andia was born in the state of Pocona, Cochabamba. One of twelve brothers, at age 16 she got married as a way to escape from the oppressive and sexist family home.

Xiomara Arriaga is a businesswoman, mother and community leader. Thanks to the SDG Fund joint programme in Honduras she has gone from spending cold night selling handmade hats and scarves in a park, to owning her own business selling artisanal goods made from traditional Lenca textiles and being an active member of the community.