Every girl in the world deserves an education, safety, and dignity. That includes access to quality sustainable feminine hygiene products and awareness about health as it relates to the female body. For the millions of women living in extreme poverty, sanitary supplies and education about reproduction are not part of their world. It also means they don't leave the house and miss up to 2 months of school a year. The poverty cycle can be broken when girls stay in school. This is why we have partnered with Days for Girls to provide reusable sanitary supplies and health education. What does this mean for girls? Read what 3 Kenyan women have to say. 

To celebrate our 40^th Anniversary, my wife Cindy and I wanted to do something meaningful and fun, so we chose a volunteer vacation. We traveled to Africa with a purpose in mind – to help build a school in Mungano, a small village outside Mombasa, Kenya. It turned out to be a trip of a lifetime.

Kritika Poudel is one such a person. As a wife and mother, she was no stranger to giving all she could, however, it was not always enough. At age 17, Kritika’s parents arranged her marriage to a boy from a neighboring village in Nepal. 

One day isn’t enough. National Chocolate Day is only one day a year. Luckily every day you can enjoy premium chocolate from farmers in partnership with CHOICE. And when you purchase this chocolate, a portion of the profit provides these farmers access an agricultural specialist.  

There has been a lot of talk about what is going on with the Kenya Presidential vote in the news. It can be hard to understand without the context from a local. So our CHOICE Kenya team has put together an update on the situation. 

Paul recently returned from an expedition to Mexico where he observed the path that the village of La Concha in Guanajuato, Mexico is taking to create sustainable income opportunities for their residents. 

On behalf of the staff, Board of Trustees, and the tens of thousands of villagers whose lives you have helped improve thank you for being a part of the CHOICE Humanitarian family. Together, we reached new heights in 2016, and we owe this success to you for two reasons. First, you believe that extreme poverty can and should end in our lifetime. And second, you trust that CHOICE Humanitarian is the organization best suited to achieve this goal. Quite simply, you are the reason CHOICE continues to flourish and, on behalf of the entire CHOICE team, we can't thank you enough. Impact highlights. 

The Advancing Life Foundation, the charitable giving entity of ASEA LLC, has partnered with us to build a vocational school in rural Ecuador. This school will be the first of its kind in this area and give opportunities that will have life changing implications. 

I have a good idea of what it might feel like to be royalty. Upon arrival in the village of Chiti in the remote western stretches of Nepal where we would be living and serving for the next week, we received a king's welcome. From the moment we stepped off the mountain bus we were welcomed by dozens of eager, smiling villagers ready to greet us with vibrant flower leis, smearing our foreheads with bright red tikkas accompanied by loud, celebratory music. Before we knew it we were carried down into the village centre in a sea of jubilance, quite literally on parade. We were then given seats as honoured guests at the head of the village square as if at a special assembly. It was an amazing spectacle, and a moment we’ll not soon forget. 

Heidy is 21 years old and lives in rural Guatemala. She is a mentor for Accent, our language learning program built by Microsoft Edge. Heidy wanted to be a doctor, but couldn't afford to go to school.