Ruth Cooke, our Head of Fundraising & Supporter Engagement in Christian Aid Ireland, reflects on Mum’s she has met around the world who can inspire us as we mark Mother’s Day this weekend.
This Mother’s Day, we are celebrating mothers like Amelia, Candida and Hawa, women who rise above adversity, who fight for a better future for their children, and inspire entire communities with their strength and their vision.
‘I worry about what my children will eat’ says Amelia, a 24 year old mother who lives with her husband and their two children, in the Indigenous Q’eqchi’ community of the Alta Verapaz region of Guatemala.
When I read those words, I thought – so do I! As Mums and parents, we carry a heavy load of worries and concerns for our children. When it comes to my three year old and my nine year old and what they eat, I worry too. I fret over how to get them to eat fewer sweets and more vegetables. I wonder if I’m offering enough variety – pasta again! – and I worry that they’re eating too much processed food.
But, as I read more about Amelia, I realised just how different our worries are Whilst I fret about the balance in the meals my children eat, I have never had to question whether there would be enough food to feed them at all. I’ve never had to wonder if I could afford to fill their plates, or if I would have to make do with less.
In that moment, my worries felt small, and yet, so big in their own way. Because as a parent and a mother, any worry for your child’s well-being is a real one.
But Amelia’s worries are different – profoundly different. Amelia faces a heartbreak far beyond what I can comprehend. As the river which her community depends on runs dry and water becomes scarce, the vital crops she has worked tirelessly to nurture wither and die before her eyes. Her worry is truly about what her children will eat.
Amelia’s journey is one of remarkable resilience and hope. When she joined forces with one of Christian Aid’s partners, Congcoop, she found more than just training - she found the tools to change her life and her community’s future. With their support (powered by your donations), she gained the skills and knowledge needed to cultivate native seeds that are not only more resilient to the changing climate but are also better suited to the needs of her land.
Amelia is now planning planting schedules that will yield multiple harvests throughout the year, ensuring that both her family and her community have a steady supply of food. She’s learning how to make her own organic fertiliser, reducing her reliance on harmful chemicals, and constructing rainwater collection systems to capture every precious drop. Through these changes, Amelia is not just adapting to the climate crisis, she is actively pushing back against it, creating a sustainable future for her children and for those who come after.
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But Amelia’s impact doesn’t stop there. She is also a leader in her community. Whatever she learns, she shares. She trains other women, empowering them to adapt their own farming practices, and to stand strong against the challenges they face. Thanks to Amelia, every member of her community now has access to a way of farming that combines the wisdom of ancient techniques with the knowledge of modern science, a blend that promises hope, sustainability, and resilience.
She is a mother who has taken her worries, challenges and transformed them into a force for change, showing the world what can happen when a mother’s love and determination are paired with knowledge and action.
Earlier this month I had the privilege of meeting Candida in the remote community of Lagunas del Paderna in western Honduras. Candida, a mother of 11 children – and grandmother to 37, embodies a strength that impressed and inspired me. Her life in this isolated, mountainous region is not easy. To survive here, families like hers must be endlessly resourceful, adapting to the ever-changing realities of climate change, which make it harder each day to feed those they love.
But the struggle for families doesn’t end there. The people of Lagunas de Paderna face violence from nearby drug corridors, political instability, and environmental destruction which threatens the land that has sustained them for generations. As if that wasn’t enough, families are being torn apart by migration, as loved ones leave in search of hope elsewhere.
Economic pressures weigh heavily on families, especially women. In a societies steeped in patriarchal traditions, women like Candida are often sidelined. They are not invited to sit at the decision making tables, nor are they encouraged to step outside the boundaries of their homes to earn their own money. This inequality only adds to the pain, as gender based violence runs rampant in communities, further deepening the suffering of women and children.
Christian Aid is supporting women in Candida’s community to reach their potential by including them in climate adaptive training, and providing them with tools so they can develop livelihoods such as beekeeping.
By empowering women with these resources, Christian Aid is helping to break the cycle of poverty, and this has a ripple effect: it improves family life, increases household stability, reduces incidents of gender based violence, challenges traditional gender roles, and shifts the balance of power in households and communities, promoting greater equality.
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I met Hawa in Sierra Leone on 2023. Hawa had been forced to leave everything she knew after a large multinational corporation took over the land her family had called home. This palm oil company had claimed the soil that had once sustained generations of her people. The loss was so unbearable – that Hawa believes that her father died from the stress of it all. Grief stricken, she and her husband fled their home, searching for a new start.
With strength, Hawa shared her story with me.
I left Malen because the chief took my father’s farmland. His land was sold without his consent. He used to have lots of land which he would grow palm oil, fruit and vegetables. He was left with nothing.
Hawa and her husband sought out a new beginning in a small village called Sorbeh Grima. However, her husband then left the village, leaving her a single mother with three young mouths to feed.
I am astounded by the determination and tenacity of Hawa. When she found out that a Village Savings & Loans Association was operating in her new village (a group that provides local women with the resources they need to start businesses and cover emergency household costs), she had hope. But there was one problem: Hawa didn’t have enough money to pay the initial fee to join, membership was 40 pence. Yet she was determined.
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Hawa knew of some women processing palm fruits for sale, so she began following along behind them, gathering the discarded pieces they left behind. With ingenuity and hard work, she processed the leftover fruit, turning it into a product she could sell. Hawa’s persistence paid off. Little by little, she earned enough to join the group. She contributed each week, and was able to access loans to set up a small farm and business to support her children and herself.
Hawa’s story immediately reminded me of Ruth from the Bible. Ruth too found herself in a foreign place with nothing but a heart full of strength and determination to find a way to support herself and her mother-in-law. Like Hawa, Ruth gleaned in the fields, following the laws of her people, picking up what was left behind enduring long days to gather enough for them both. Just as Hawa’s hard work has led her to new opportunities, Ruth’s determination and faith brought her into the embrace of God’s generosity. With the kindness and generosity of Boaz, and the laws that God had laid down to set the people of Israel apart from those around them – the laws of gleaning and the kinsman-redeemer – which reflect a God of justice and compassion who lifts up those who are bowed down by poverty and injustice – Ruth’s life was transformed. She became a mother herself after marrying Boaz – and, of course, she was part of the lineage of Christ.
Wow. God’s justice and compassion has the power to turn lives around in ways we could never imagine!
It is this very belief that led to the creation of Christian Aid in 1945. And it is the same belief that drives us to give, act and pray today, with faith, love, and determination.
Happy Mother’s Day!
Author - Ruth Cooke, Head of Fundraising and Supporter Engagement