How Pigs and Partnership Changed a Family’s Life
Maribeth Cabanes has been blessed with seven children. But her four girls and three boys aren’t the only ones she invests her passion and energy into. She also raises pigs for her agribusiness, and she’s exceptional at it!
For 26 years, Maribeth has been pig raising in the remote, mountainous town of Don Salvador Benedicto in the Negros Occidental province of the Philippines.
In addition to facing poverty, her community also has a history of conflict. From the 1970s through the early 1990s, Don Salvador Benedicto was a hotbed of communist insurgency.
Despite the challenges of her context, Maribeth has managed to build a strong and thriving agribusiness—in part with support from our local partner, Katuwang.
Katuwang has provided Maribeth with the capital needed to purchase a bulk supply of inputs for the pigs. She has also received training in proper management, feeding practices, and more. With her pig business steadily growing, she hopes to expand next into rice and vegetable farming and chicken production.
Through her agribusiness, Maribeth has been able to provide for her family and send her children to school. Of her older children, one is already working as a teacher and the other as a merchant marine. She hopes to be able to send the rest of her children onto university, too.
Maribeth represents one of the many talented business women in our global network. In fact, 73 percent of the clients we serve are women.
Women and girls are more likely to face poverty than men are. At the same time, women also tend to invest more of their income, however meager it may be, into their family—prioritizing things like healthcare and education.
The evidence is clear that creating economic opportunities for women is vital to eradicating poverty and creating a world where all people can flourish as God intended.
This International Women's Day, we celebrate resilient, hard-working women like Maribeth and invite you to partner with them by by making a life-changing gift today.
Your support will provide women across the world with business training, mentoring, access to capital, and other support they need to start and grow businesses. As they do, they'll be able to lift themselves and their families out of poverty and create jobs for others in their communities.
Investing in women causes a positive ripple effect—a ripple effect you have the power to start today. So, will you?
March 6, 2019