About Us

Upendo Livelihoods is a nonprofit organization that works in United States and around the world to alleviate hunger and poverty. We listen and use our knowledge and experience to expand people’s choices, and support people to lift themselves out of poverty.

Human Dignity

We purposely work to enhance human dignity, so that everyone has access to resources they need to become providers for their households and active participation in the development of their communities.

Solidarity

We will walk with and listen to concerns of our participants as they take the central role to improve their lives. At the community level and internationally we will work with like-minded people and organizations to reduce poverty and enhance human dignity.

Participation

All men and women have the right to shape their own destinies. In our work we will support vulnerable people. Greater attention will be given to women and girls as individuals and groups. We will promote their participation and leadership at higher levels of decision making.

UPENDO LIVELIHOODS is about reaching out to people. We listen to and learn from people living in poverty to identify and help them fulfill their own needs. We fight hunger and poverty to make lasting change in people’s lives. We use our knowledge and experience to expand people’s choices. We seek to end all forms of human poverty by going into the hard places and closely walking with the world’s most vulnerable people.

Our view of poverty is holistic and complex. Our solutions are innovative and community-specific. We courageously seek out the overlooked and advocate for the underserved. We’re unrelenting and we do what others claim can’t be done. We honor the people we serve by inviting them to contribute to the process. Through community-owned transformation we empower children, families and communities to invest in their own development. More than anything, we want to see people thrive. We are agents of change. We work, we feed, we teach, we love, but we know when it’s time to leave.

Together with our partners we work around the world providing life-changing resources such as clean water, healthcare, food, education, vocational training, and restoring hope and dignity. Without regard to race, creed or nationality and without adverse distinction of any kind, we serve without stipulation or expectation and on the basis of need alone.

Vision

The VISION of UPENDO LIVELIHOODS is to be a global leader in helping transform lives and livelihoods of vulnerable people, especially women and girls, across the globe by creating long-lasting, positive and community-led change. UPENDO LIVELIHOODS brings together a team of dynamic professionals who use their skills, knowledge, and experience, and leverage their networks to help eliminate hunger and reduce poverty.

Mission

Upendo Livelihood’s mission is to empower the disadvantaged and act as catalysts creating opportunities for people living in poverty. Upendo Livelihoods creates impact through its holistic programming to break the cycle of poverty in households and communities where we work. Poverty heavily impacts on people’s ability to care for and feed their families. Whether through better methods of farming, education opportunities for children, better health access, clean water, increase economic opportunity, or women’s empowerment, vision of Upendo Livelihoods is to be a leader where we work in helping transform lives and livelihoods of vulnerable people, especially women and girls. Upendo Livelihoods brings together a team of dynamic professionals who use their skills, knowledge, and experience, and leverage their networks to help eliminate hunger and reduce poverty.

WHAT WE DO

 

About 783 million people live below the international poverty line of US$1.90 a day. Poverty is more than the lack of income and resources to ensure a sustainable livelihood. Its manifestations include hunger and malnutrition, limited access to education and other basic services, social discrimination and exclusion as well as the lack of participation in decision-making. Most people living below the poverty line belong to two regions: Southern Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.

UPENDO LIVELIHOODS provides strategic focus and technical assistance to program design and implementation of innovative agricultural, food security, and livelihoods programs that provide a pathway for vulnerable communities to get out of poverty.  With input from participatory processes, programs and proposals with strong Theories of Change are developed and implemented.  Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability, and Learning (MEAL)is integrated in all the key priority areas of Agriculture, food security, and nutrition; women’s empowerment; water and irrigation; Access to Energy; and Education. To improve the quality of programs, UPENDO disseminates tools, approaches, and shares expertise on transformative programs with similar programs. 

Reduce Poverty

 

About 783 million people live below the international poverty line of US$1.90 a day. Poverty is more than the lack of income and resources to ensure a sustainable livelihood. Its manifestations include hunger and malnutrition, limited access to education and other basic services, social discrimination and exclusion as well as the lack of participation in decision-making. Most people living below the poverty line belong to two regions: Southern Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.

UPENDO LIVELIHOODS provides strategic focus and technical assistance to program design and implementation of innovative agricultural, food security, and livelihoods programs that provide a pathway for vulnerable communities to get out of poverty.  With input from participatory processes, programs and proposals with strong Theories of Change are developed and implemented.  Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability, and Learning (MEAL)is integrated in all the key priority areas of Agriculture, food security, and nutrition; women’s empowerment; water and irrigation; Access to Energy; and Education. To improve the quality of programs, UPENDO disseminates tools, approaches, and shares expertise on transformative programs with similar programs. 

Eliminate hunger, food insecurity, and malnutrition

 

More than 821 million people still suffer from chronic hunger. Among children it is estimated that 155 million under five years of age are chronically malnourished (stunted) and over 52 million are acutely malnourished (wasted). The goal of UPENDO LIVELIHOODS is to help people have regular access to enough high-quality food to lead active, health, lives. We can help by supporting programs and projects that promote food security and good nutrition and make sure that up-to-date information about agricultural production and livestock management; food handling processing and storage; and marketing is readily available and accessible

UPENDO Programs

UPENDO LIVELIHOODS Programs are unique in that they are holistic, impact-oriented and people-centered. We listen to and learn from people to identify and help them fulfill their own needs. We use our skills, knowledge, experience, and leverage our networks to expand people’s choices and help build their capacity to solve their own problems. Overall, we do the following;

BUILD

 

Build local capacity to transparently and equitably manage community assets and resources to support diversified agricultural production systems, pinpoint and develop new sources of income, and promote women’s empowerment.

HELP

 
Build local capacity to transparently and equitably manage community assets and resources to support diversified agricultural production systems, pinpoint and develop new sources of income, and promote women’s empowerment.

STORAGE

Build local capacity to transparently and equitably manage community assets and resources to support diversified agricultural production systems, pinpoint and develop new sources of income, and promote women’s empowerment.

DISTRIBUTE

 

Build local capacity to transparently and equitably manage community assets and resources to support diversified agricultural production systems, pinpoint and develop new sources of income, and promote women’s empowerment.

CONNECT

 
Build local capacity to transparently and equitably manage community assets and resources to support diversified agricultural production systems, pinpoint and develop new sources of income, and promote women’s empowerment.

UPENDO Strategic Objectives

 

UPENDO LIVELIHOODS has identified five key priorities on which it is best placed to intervene. These priorities or Strategic Objectives represent our main areas of work to achieve our vision of communities free from poverty, hunger and malnutrition. UPENDO aims to use an integrated approach to enhance incomes, increase agricultural productivity, and contribute to improving the living standards of all, especially the poorest, in an economically, socially and environmentally sustainable manner – contributing to the implementation of the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

The 5 key priorities

AGRICULTURE, FOOD SECURITY AND NUTRITION

 

Food security exists when all people at all times have physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life. Our focus  is on the four pillars of food security: food availability, access to food, utilization and stability.

The nutritional dimension is integral to the concept of food security.

 

WATER & IRRIGATION

From 1990 to 2010, more than 2 billion people gained access to safe drinking water, but 748 million people are still without clean drinking water. UPENDO LIVELIHOODS provides water related equipment and services including well drilling, water pumps, and water filtering to help provide safe drinking water. The water is also used for food production (crops, livestock, and fisheries), preparation, and processing

ACCESS TO ENERGY

 

UPENDO LIVELIHOODS provides energy-efficient, low-cost technology solutions, including clean cook stoves and solar water pumps. With better information and labor women save from not travelling far to collect firewood, women can enhance food security by growing home gardens and keeping small livestock. Less destruction of trees and forests is experienced as a result of energy saving stoves.

EDUCATION

 

 Education is key in breaking intergenerational poverty. Girls who stay in school are healthier, earn more money as adults, start families later – and are more likely to send their daughters and sons to school. But the cost of secondary school is prohibitive to many families. UPENDO LIVELIHOODS helps keep girls in school, an investment now and for future generations.

For every additional year of education for women of reproductive age, child mortality decreased by 9.5 per cent

But the cost of secondary school is prohibitive to many families. UPENDO LIVELIHOODS helps keep girls in school, an investment now and for future generations. UPENDO LIVELIHOODS provides school supplies school fees to vulnerable children, especially girls.

WOMEN’S EMPOWERMENT

 

We know that to transform communities we must start with women. address the five domains of women empowerment: Production (Decisions about  crop and livestock production),  resources  (access to and decision making power about productive resources and assets, such as land, agricultural inputs, or credit),  income (control of irrigated outputs and expenditures), leadership (involvement in cooperatives, community based organizations, and other social or economic groups, and time (allocation of time to agriculture, income generating activities,  and domestic tasks). Reducing labor burden for women through appropriate technology and other strategies will relieve time allocated for some time-consuming activities for use in productive purposes

 

Women are trained on new technologies, skills training, savings, and loan groups/ microcredit and other Income Generating Activities (IGAs) that they choose

Women farmers trained on value addition options, market opportunities, and pricing; fertilizer, seed varieties and farming tools