Every day, HIV/AIDS claims another life, widows another woman, and orphans another child in the country of Cameroon. This leaves children helpless and alone to face the unthinkable dangers of street life, and leaves widows with no source of income to provide food or medicine for themselves or their children.

As our mission states, Bread and Water for Africa channels the gifts and support we receive from friends like you into grassroots initiatives that promote community self-sufficiency, health, and education and a stronger Africa. We know that African people work extremely hard each day to improve their situation for themselves and their children – the next generation, but they lack the resources to truly and permanently change their circumstances. Right now, there is little more that these widows and children in Cameroon can do without our help.

Expecting mothers get lessons in healthcare through Hope Services in Cameroon.

In the past few years, we have supported the construction and operation of a bakery run by our partners at the Faith Healing and Development Organization (FHDO) in Sierra Leone. This bakery has provided a stable income for women throughout the community and has bolstered the local economy. To date, the bakery is successfully operational and is giving new employees tangible skills and the hope of financial stability – a true pathway out of poverty. In fact, FHDO has hopes of expanding the bakery in the near future and is proud of the bakery as a commendable model of an income generating project to serve 120 women and their families!

Widows have been job skills like making soap; the bakery will further help them acquire skills needed to break the cycle of povery.

Today, Hope Services in Cameroon is seeking to build a similar bakery to support approximately 100 widows in the capital city of the country. Bread and Water for Africa aims to fund the construction of this bakery to be run by the Hope Services organization in the coming months. The bakery will offer widows the opportunity to acquire tangible job skills, as well as a way to break the cycle of poverty that plagues so many. Living on the streets poses many dangers and offers little opportunity for these women and children aside from begging or selling their own bodies just to feed themselves.

We’ve seen the potential impact of this type of project thanks to the successes of our partners at FHDO in Sierra Leone, and we have full faith that our partners at Hope Services will use our support to achieve the same positive change for these destitute women. But it is a huge undertaking. We hope you can offer support to this admirable grassroots effort by donating or sharing this story with others.