Jacinta is a tailor and mother of two living in Machakos, Kenya. With the help of her young apprentice, she weaves and sells school uniforms in a busy open-air market. A woman leader, Jacinta is also chairperson of the Machakos Group for Disabled Street Vendors. Jacinta and thousands of other street vendors are organizing to advance their right to safe working conditions and sustainable incomes.

Learn more about Jacinta in Stories of Hope [4].

This mother and daughter are raising pigs in their tiny village in Myanmar. This may seem like an easy job, but for this family it represents the beginning of a new life. After last year’s devastating cyclone, almost 800,000 people were displaced from their homes, including this mom and her daughter. They are now one step closer to getting back on their feet.

Learn more about the women benefiting from this livelihoods program in Stories of Hope [5].

These two women are Laurel Firestone (left) and Susana De Anda, of Community Water Center, in Visalia, Calif. They are UUSC allies in the growing movement for water justice in California. De Anda explains, "We work on the principle that clean drinking water is a basic human right, not a privilege." 

Learn more about California's campaign for the human right to water in Stories of Hope [6].

These young girls live in Faryab Province, in northern Afghanistan. In a country where just 12 percent of women can read, lack of education and illiteracy are major obstacles to women and girls claiming their full human rights. To improve rights awareness, UUSC funded human-rights trainings for schoolteachers in Faryab Province, providing them with the tools they need to teach students about human rights.

Learn more about the human-rights teacher trainings in Stories of Hope [7].