Stories

What the Air Carries

Colombia • 08/29/25

The place where gunfire and arguments had once filled the air now carried the smell of fresh arepas and sweet guava pastries. Music drifted down the street as people ventured out to stalls set up by our entrepreneurship students in Santander de Quilichao, Colombia. On this bright August day, they offered samples of the treats they’d made, greeting each passerby with warm smiles. Local reporters interviewed participants, noting the optimism and courage of the students who had built their impromptu marketplace.

But it was more than a marketplace—it was a step of courage for a community that has known years of fear. Even standing outside in these streets was once considered an act of bravery. As participants and neighbors chatted, bought goods, and built new connections, they stood together in a future they once thought impossible.

That future took shape on August 8, when Santander’s “La Calle del Emprendimiento”—the Street of Entrepreneurship—opened for the first time, organized by Fundamor and Flint Global. Forty-seven entrepreneurs, including 17 Flint Global students, transformed the street into a festival of skill, creativity, and hope. Stalls overflowed with traditional dishes, drinks, desserts, handicrafts, plants, and jewelry. Laughter mingled with the rhythm of live music as families lingered from stand to stand, stopping to taste, to buy, and to talk.

For many of the students—young people from a community long scarred by violence—it was their first time stepping into an entrepreneurship fair. They put into practice what they had learned in Flint’s Entrepreneurship classes: how to greet a customer, track inventory, manage their finances, and tell their story. Yet the day offered something even greater than building new skills.

Their business ideas no longer felt like classroom exercises, but living ventures. They built customer lists, made sales, and even forged new partnerships. One student found donors to support a workshop for elderly artisans. “It was the first time in my life that I spoke at an event...” she said quietly, her voice filled with gratitude. “A thousand thanks.”

The Entrepreneurship Fair became a symbol of light and hope for a community historically affected by violence. For the first time, the inhabitants of this region experienced a day that not only promoted local talent but also allowed them to reconnect with the joy, flavor, and music of their homeland.

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Green Gold

Tanzania • 08/22/25

Mathayo stands proud among his tall, green corn (maize) crop, surveying his neighbor's plot. Their short, yellowed stalks look like a different kind of plant altogether. The only difference is the biogas fertilizer. Walking home through the fields, he passes other neighbors’ stunted stands. They have mouths to feed, just like his own family, and now that the fertilizer is proving itself through this golden harvest, people are taking notice.

He and other leaders in the Lioliondo community are working diligently with Flint to ensure that one day their neighbors share these same powerfully simple benefits. One new idea in particular has him excited—and it could change everything for his community.

As one of Flint's team members, he knows firsthand what it has meant for the families involved in this project. No more smoke-filled kitchens. No more hours spent harvesting firewood from the ever-receding forest.

Outside his small tin-roofed home, the biogas system looks like a giant vinyl bag lying in a long, low greenhouse, protected by a fence and fed by his family. Bloated with methane fuel, it is passively turning cow manure into life-changing cooking fuel and fertilizer as it soaks up the last rays of light.

The plan was simple: four neighboring families would refill a portable biogas bag every three days or so and help feed and maintain the “mother” unit. One of his neighbors has been testing out the portable system, and it is working! They have all started fondly calling the smaller storage bags the “children.”

Inside the cooking hut, Mathayo’s wife turns a knob to bring the bright blue biogas flame to life. As the corn and beans come to a roiling boil, Mathayo reflects on his fortune—and that of his neighbors. As daylight gives way to night and stars prick the East African sky, the warm blue glow of the biogas flame fills the cooking hut. Mathayo smiles at the thought of a new dawn—both green and gold—for this community just around the corner.

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Painting a Different Future

USA - Nashville • 08/15/25

In Flint's Thriving Skills program for justice-involved youth in Nashville, Gelen runs her hand along the edge of the shelf she just finished, feeling the rough grain of the wood snag slightly under her fingertips. There’s a smear of dried paint on her thumb from earlier. “I'm going to run my own painting business,” she says, her voice steady and sure. “My whole family loves painting together. I can make things more beautiful.”

It’s more than a hobby. For Gelen, building and painting offer something solid in a world that often felt unstable. In this classroom, surrounded by tools, structure, and second chances, she’s sketching out a future far different from the paths she was expected to take.

Gelen is the first female student to enroll at JDEC, an organization Flint partners with to provide our programs for local vulnerable youth. She joined the summer program with purpose, quickly picking up drills and saws, drafting goals and résumés, and always arriving with an energy that pulled others forward. “She came ready,” one instructor said. “She showed up with a smile and the boldness to lead.”

What keeps her coming back isn’t just the stipend. It’s the chance to build something she's never had before — stability, safety, a name for herself. She’s choosing work over chaos, creativity over control, color over concrete. Her love of fashion, empanadas, and design shapes how she sees her future — vibrant, authentic, and her own.

The paintbrush, to Gelen, is more than a tool. It’s proof that transformation is possible, not just of walls and spaces, but of lives. She dreams of starting a business that hires young people like her, people who've been counted out, but have vision in their hands. She’s already building that life with each planter box, each freshly painted surface, each spoken dream.

This fall, she'll return to JDEC’s yearlong program to finish her diploma, find work, and take another step toward her business plan. The grain may be a little rough, but she’s not done painting yet.

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A Raised Hand

South Sudan • 08/08/25

The talking stopped. Martha's weathered finger cut through the air, and the women turned to listen. At sixty-something, she commanded attention not just because of her age, but because she had sat through more broken promises than anyone else here.

"I have been in a VSLA since 2012," she began, a light breeze dying in the leaves overhead. The other women knew what came next—organizers who disappeared with their savings, meetings that ended with empty hands and bitter arguments.

"But I have never found a VSLA that lasts as long as the Flint VSLA has."

As the words hung in the hot air, Martha felt something loosen in her chest—a knot of skepticism she'd carried for years, finally beginning to unravel.

A woman across the circle nodded, unwrapping coins tied in her headwrap cloth. Real money, earned and saved and still there. The wooden savings box sat heavy beside the facilitator, its metal lock catching the light through acacia leaves.

Martha gestured toward the box. "We have learned a lot, and we know this VSLA will not collapse like others." The certainty surprised her. When had her heart stopped bracing for disappointment? Was it the month their records balanced perfectly? The day they gave successful loans? Or simply the gradual accumulation of meetings where people actually showed up?

Around the circle, weathered hands rested steady on knees. No desperate leaning forward. No anxious glances toward the path. Just women who had learned the difference between promises and tools.
"This group is only bringing in money and filling us with knowledge," Martha concluded.

The sound of children playing mixed with rustling acacia leaves. Martha lowered her hand, feeling the weight of coins in her own cloth. Money she would carry home today. Money that would still be in the box tomorrow.
For once, the math of hope was adding up.

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Weaving Grief Into Hope

India • 08/01/25

It started when Sujata met Sister Sathi, a Flint coordinator who invited her to a prayer group. The prayers gave her peace in her grief. The women gave her friendship. And through them, she found Flint's Practical Business Training.

That’s where she learned to weave with steady hands. To plan. To hope again.

Now, the market moves around her in waves — the clang of pots, voices calling out prices, the scent of turmeric threading through the crowd.

A woman stops. Crouches down. Picks up one basket and turns it over in her hands.
The transaction is simple. A price named. A nod. A crumpled rupee note passed between weathered palms.

But when Sujata holds that payment — just a slip of paper — it feels like something more. Something earned.

She folds it neatly and tucks it into her sari.

That sale doesn’t erase the road behind her. The illness that took her husband. The months alone with her daughters. The days when hope felt like a stranger.

But it marks the beginning of something different.

With bamboo beneath her fingers and the afternoon light slanting across her work, Sujata reaches for another strip.

Her daughters will have school fees. They will have dignity.

And she will have work that honors both her grief and her hope.

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The Beans Didn’t Lie

Rwanda • 07/25/25

Sylvestre stood quietly at the edge of the garden, arms folded across his chest, eyes narrowing beneath the brim of his sweat-stained cap. Two rows of bean plants stretched out before him—one lush and full, the other spindly and yellowing at the edges. He squatted slowly, fingers brushing the soil, then reached up and broke a pod from each. The sound was small—pop, pop—but in the quiet of the morning, it carried.

Geraldine stood nearby, saying nothing. Her skirt was dusted with red clay. Her eyes followed his hands, not pleading, just waiting. They had walked many seasons together—sometimes in step, sometimes not. But now, the difference in the dirt was impossible to ignore.

Sylvestre rolled a bean between his thumb and forefinger. It was firm. Heavy. He bit it clean in two and chewed slowly, eyes still locked on the plants. The other half, from the old method—chemical fertilizer—was chalky and pale. He spit it into the dirt without ceremony.

The breeze stirred the banana leaves overhead, the sound like distant applause. Smoke curled from the neighbor’s cookfire, mingling with the scent of damp soil and manure. Somewhere up the hill, a hoe struck earth in steady rhythm—life continuing, unaware of the small revolution happening here.

He stood up and looked at her. Not past her. At her. The corner of his mouth pulled up in something just short of a smile.
“Conservation agriculture,” he said, almost to himself. “It’s winning.”

Geraldine didn’t respond right away. Her hands relaxed. She bent down to pluck a weed near her foot, blinking against sudden sun. Behind her, rows of beans whispered in the wind like a chorus. Not just food—but proof.

What the soil had begun to say, Sylvestre had finally heard.

In a few months, this hillside would become a place people came to learn. But for now, it was enough that they stood together in the same garden, seeing the same thing.

And maybe, for the first time in years, dreaming in the same direction.

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A Cliff’s Edge

Colombia• 07/18/25

Santiago’s hands are steady now as he adjusts his backpack on the doorstep of the group home. The late afternoon sun casts long shadows from the mango tree drooping over the wall, and heat still clings to the pavement, rising around him in waves. A motorcycle zips past, its muffler echoing off the cinderblock walls. From inside, the clang of a pot mixes with the soft beats of reggaeton music drifting from a back room. A breeze carries the familiar smell of rice and plantains.

Just a year ago, those same hands would have been trembling. Back then, this threshold felt like a cliff’s edge—heart pounding as the unknown stretched before him.

Today, he smiles. His heart is full. Tomorrow, he’ll walk back through this door—not as a resident, but as a member of the staff

Eighteen had once felt like a death sentence. Santiago would lie awake listening to the same sounds—the motorcycle, the dinner preparations, the dogs barking in the distance—and wonder what would happen when he aged out. He’d seen the older boys who left before him, the ones who promised to stay in touch but never did. Some said they found work. Others just disappeared. The streets had a way of swallowing kids like him.

That fear lingered through countless sleepless nights—until something shifted in a quiet classroom in Pereira. Just recently, Santiago approached his facilitator with steady eyes and quiet pride. He was about to graduate into independence and leave the home. But he had a different plan.

“I’m deeply grateful for your support, for your teachings, for listening to me, and for showing me how I can be a better person out there, in society,” he said.

Then he shared two decisions: he had accepted a job as a trainer at the very group home where he once arrived as a stranger, and he wanted to continue attending Flint’s classes voluntarily. His reason was simple, but carried the weight of everything he’d overcome:

“To stay away from crime,” he said. “And build a different future for myself and my family.”

Tomorrow, Santiago will walk back through that familiar doorway. But this time, he’ll be the one offering hope to kids who stand where he once stood—terrified, uncertain, but ready to discover who they might become.

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Defiant Joy

Sierra Leone• 07/11/25

"Dirt scratcher." "Hoe holder." "Bush man."

Names like these get thrown around in some places—half joke, half jab. But in parts of Sierra Leone, that view is beginning to shift.

Abu Kapangbavie spreads a fresh layer of chopped marsh grass mulch across the sun-beaten soil of Bauya—a place where the twin lions of civil war and Ebola have taken someone from every family he knows. He hums softly to himself, moving with quiet rhythm. Each layer helps his fields defy torrential rains and searing sun.

Abu knows there's more to mulching than just mulch. He's come to see that doing good work—and doing it with joy—makes all the difference.

Joy is a strange thing in Sierra Leone. It feels risky. Fragile. But choosing to work with joy is like mulching ginger: a long-term investment, a kind of protection, an act of defiance.

Yes, Abu is a farmer. A hoe holder. But he's also become something else—a craftsman.

Since 2022, he's worked with agricultural trainers from Flint, and in that time his farming income has grown from just $13 a year to $200. The numbers might sound small, but when you live on the edge, every inch of ground you gain matters. He remembers how long it took him to learn that precision matters, that timing matters, that care compounds over months and seasons.

Those months whirl forward and Abu finds himself standing in the same field once again. His ginger has grown into what looks like a miniature bamboo forest—tall green leaves fluttering in the wind. A promising harvest is on the horizon. But his eyes are heavy.

He glances toward the neighboring farms. They're empty. Abandoned. Many farmers have left to work in the new mines opening nearby. Chinese contractors have moved into Bauya with papers claiming land rights. There's no recourse for small farmers like Abu's neighbors. Move or be moved. Join or be left behind.

Life here is fragile.

But Abu believes in something deeper.

Farming, done well, is his path out of poverty. People may still joke about his vocation, but they're beginning to see it differently. Some now call people like him, "Di Man Way Dey Feed Di Nation"—"The man who feeds the nation."

Last year, his family gathered a bumper crop. And because he's become such a consistent, humble example in the community, Flint's Sierra Leone team hired him as their first local employee to train others. He's embraced Flint's approach to agriculture: Be on time. Keep a high standard. Do not waste. Work with joy.

In a place where joy is hard-won, Abu has found it in the soil. And slowly, carefully, he's making a name for himself by helping others find it too.

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Untangling Tomorrow

India • 07/04/25

New Delhi, India. A city with the same population as the entire state of Texas. Here, Lakhan stirs awake as he prepares for another day of searching for work. Tangled live wires electrify a single bulb, illuminating the steam curling from the chai heating on his wife's cookstove.

He glances over at the sleeping forms of his three daughters. Once, they would have risen to prepare for school. Now they help their mother with daily chores while he searches desperately for work in the maze of concrete that is New Delhi—a city thrumming with millions of lives.

"Tomorrow," he thinks. "Tomorrow I'll attend the training." Like those chaotic wires overhead, Lakhan's path forward feels impossibly tangled, but tomorrow holds promise.

On good days, he finds ten to twelve hours of back-breaking labor for a $5 paycheck. The only thing worse than missing work is losing that money they desperately need.

A friend told him about three days of free business training. He's dreamed of starting something hundreds of times, but each day calls to be fed. Before leaving, he kisses each daughter goodbye, seeing hope in their eyes.

The next day arrives with clean clothes and carefully combed hair. Once, moving out of poverty seemed impossible to imagine. But as Lakhan listens to the trainer and discusses ideas with nineteen other participants, a clearer path unfolds. A connection to a vegetable seller outside the city—a relationship he hadn't thought to build upon—now seems like a stepping stone.

Each evening, he returns with new ideas. His wife listens intently. His daughters gather close, eyes bright with possibility. There is so much potential they hadn't even known was there.

With guidance from trainers and a small loan from relatives, Lakhan purchases a used wooden cart. Selling is slow at first, but the hope in his daughters' eyes lights a fire inside him.

The lightbulb glows bright the night Lakhan and his wife excitedly announce to their daughters: they can return to school. As its buzzing glow is extinguished, Lakhan lies down with a smile. Steady breathing fills the quiet space. His own breath flows easy. The rent is paid. And tomorrow, his girls will learn.

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Think Twice

Kenya • 06/27/25

Over a year ago, our team met Macrin—a determined young woman with a spark of something different. (center in the photo). She had just joined the Nyanguda Savings and Loan group, a tight-knit collective of women based in Bondo, a town in Western Kenya near the edge of Lake Victoria. In a region where the economy is dominated by fishing on the world’s largest tropical lake, Macrin stood out for her ambition to chart a different course.

Creativity and resilience are the hallmarks of the women in our groups, and Macrin embodied both. With limited resources but a bold vision, she opened a clothing shop inside a modest 10-by-10-foot steel box—once a shipping container, now a storefront.

As trust grew within the savings group, Macrin received her first loan to expand her inventory. The early days were tough. Stocking the right items proved challenging. But after receiving training in customer care from Flint staff and steady encouragement from her groupmates, Macrin began refining her offerings to match her customers’ tastes. Her sales increased, and she repaid the loan with interest.

Was it just beginner’s luck? Macrin was eager to find out...

She took a second loan, then a third. Each time, she applied lessons from the last. Her business grew steadily, and so did her confidence and leadership. Yet with growth came new challenges. When asked what Flint’s support helped with the most, Macrin didn’t hesitate:

“Keeping good records.”

It’s something we hear often. Success doesn’t come from one sweeping change but from a steady accumulation of 1% improvements: training, coaching, feedback, and accountability. These small gains compound over time—moving women like Macrin from surviving to thriving.

Recently, Macrin stood before her entire savings group, invited by Mildred (on the right in the photo), Flint's local trainer, to speak on loan strategies. Her message was practical and empowering:

“Anyone considering taking a loan should first identify the business they want to pursue—or understand what is lacking in their current business. Having a clear plan for how the loan will be used will help you repay it.”

Her insight and influence didn’t stop there. Just last month, a local company approached the Nyanguda group to test a new energy-efficient stove. Macrin and her fellow members gladly accepted, proud to contribute their feedback to improve a product that could benefit families across the region.

And Macrin isn’t done dreaming. She recently shared with Mildred her next big goal:

“I want to open a much bigger clothing shop and call it ‘Think Twice.’”

The name captures the thoughtful, deliberate spirit that defines her journey—a young woman weighing every decision with care, from inventory choices to financial planning.

As Flint continues to launch and support groups across the Lake Victoria region, we’re inspired by women like Macrin: bold, wise, and quietly revolutionizing their communities. Her story reminds us all to think twice—not just about our choices, but about the potential that lies within people who are given the tools, the trust, and the opportunity to lead. Her story is just one branch of something bigger. Flint's local leaders are quietly growing a movement—one savings group, one woman, one conversation at a time.