Meet Justine*, a modern African woman. Justine is a single mother who has just retired from working on a CEED farm in Uganda. When she began working on the farm in 2001, retirement wasn't a concept she was even familiar with, let alone dreamed of. Prior to working on the CEED farm, Justine tried to take care of her family but had difficulty receiving consistent work and reliable wages.
Since she began working on CEED's farm, she earned a fair a consistent wage that enabled her to:
- Care for her children
- Receive medical care
- Buy a plot of land
- Build a permanent home
- Send her children to school
Now, her children are grown - two daughters are now nurses and her son is a school teacher. Justine has retired from the farm, but has a few trees on her land which she can tend, harvest and then sell for income. She enjoys her children and grandchildren and takes it a bit easier in her retirement life.
All this has only been possible for Justine, and many others like her, through the mission of CEED, who Justine fondly refers to as "a few good Pittsburgh folks who wanted to change lives and communities."
*Name changed to protect individual privacy