God never left her side, and now her life is completely transformed!
Where Danke once struggled to care for her six children alone, she is now recognized for helping other women to thrive.
It was ten years ago when Danke Hereta lost her husband, but for her, the grief hasn’t left—it’s settled like dust in her lungs.
In southern Ethiopia, the land itself seems to echo her struggle: parched and tired. With six children to raise and a farm to tend, Danke faced the crushing weight of responsibility alone. The life she once knew had vanished.
She scraped together what little she had to hire a farmhand, hoping his help might at least keep the land alive while she cared for her children. But even then, the harvest was poor. The farm rarely fed all six children, and Danke found herself stretched to the edge.
Then, a member from the local church approached Danke, and invited her to learn about Conservation Agriculture (CA) and join a Self-Help Group (SHG). Through this program, she learned new farming techniques that involved reduced tillage, mulching, and more. She immediately became curious, and told her farmhand about it, asking him to try it on a corner of the land. But when he didn’t follow the instructions, she was left with a portion of the farm that yielded nothing. She was discouraged. After all of this, nothing had changed.
But the church kept encouraging her. “They advised me to not give up and to try it myself,” she explained. Though Danke was already stretched thin from caring for her children, cooking meals, and the grief and loss that her husband left in his absence, she took a leap of faith, farming a small corner of maize with these new techniques.
That little corner flourished! It produced twice as much maize as the regular farming method, yielding 100 kg of maize. So the very next season, she expanded her plot, farming it all on her own. And this year, she’s excited to expand it again!
Now, Danke proudly holds her woven basket filled with more maize than she’d ever known. She is able to provide enough food for her family, and still has some leftovers to sell. “I give thanks to God, for one of my sons graduated from the university and started working in a government office!” she smiles. “And also one of my daughters married, and started sharing my load. I am good now.”
Besides her growing farm, Danke also attends her local Self-Help Group, a community of 20 women that get together to save money. As a group, they pooled some of their savings together to open a shop that supplies seeds and food-sustaining PICS bags to the community. Getting loans and opening businesses used to be only accessible to men, but through these SHGs, women now have opportunities to save, learn, and to grow their income.
Danke was elected to represent her SHG, and was also elected as the chairperson of the larger association in charge of it. And, on International Woman’s Day, she received a trophy honouring her work of empowering women socially, economically, and politically.
She never would have imagined that life could be like this after the death of her husband. Where she once struggled to even feed her children, God did not leave her. Now, thanks to a local church’s initiative, she teaches other women how they can thrive also. There is hope!
Tearfund equips churches like Danke’s to empower women through savings groups and other long-term solutions. These are not band-aid, short-term solutions—these are lives transformed!