The outstanding leaders of WomenStrong International member organizations in Ghana and Kenya have been honored with grants that recognize their efforts awarded by Stop Hunger, a global network of non-profit organizations working in 80 countries for a hunger-free world.

The $5,000 grants to Abenaa Akuamoa-Boateng and Beldina Omolo are for “exceptional work” and are part of Stop Hunger’s “Women Stop Hunger Awards” program that highlights the key role women play in ending starvation and hunger.

Kenya is ranked among the world’s 10 poorest economies, with a poverty line of $17 USD per month and many earning far less. Alice Visionary Foundation Project (AVFP) works with the poorest of the poor, women and young girls in the slums of Manyatta in Kisumu, Kenya, as well as children in the impoverished countryside.

Stop Hunger’s grant recognized the success of AVFP’s urban agriculture training program for women, as well as their school garden and feeding program for kids in a peri-urban area outside Kisumu. The first program, coordinated with local agricultural extension experts, teaches impoverished women urban agriculture and vertical cultivation. The second initiative, the School Feeding Project, provides nutritious lunches daily to 629 school children ages 6 – 15, while also teaching the children to grow and raise their own vegetables.

Meanwhile, Ghana is ranked as a “middle-income” country, according to the 2014 Human Development Report, yet it remains a “food-deficit country,” and Akuamoa-Boateng’s Women’s Health to Wealth (WHW) works with some of the poorest of the poor. Of the more than 2 million people living in Ghana’s second largest city, Kumasi, more than half are living in poverty, and more than half of Kumasi’s population is female.

Read the full article on the leaders recognized for work in Ghana and Kenya by Api Podder at My Social Good News.