Meet Maria
Maria is a local woman in Cape Verde who is active in her church and knows her community well. She keeps hearing the same thing in conversation of women around her: feeding their families well is getting harder. Food is expensive, life is busy, and grabbing inexpensive fried food is usually the easiest option. Some women are concerned about gaining weight, feeling tired, and what their diets might mean for their health.
Maria and her church want to do something to help- but they have no idea where to start.
This is what it can look like for the Church to be the hands and feet of Jesus—loving women not only in words, but through practical action.
How We Work:
Maria’s Story
Understand the Problem
Maria sees women struggling with nutrition. JIC helps her uncover the real barriers: cost, time, knowledge, and access.
Build on What
Already Exists
We identify what already exists: local knowledge, nutritious foods, skilled women, church relationships, and a community kitchen.
Find the Right Approach
JIC combines research with what Maria has learned locally to develop a program that fits her community.
Equip Local
Partners To Lead
Maria’s church leads cooking workshops, nutrition activities, goal-setting, shopping support, and women’s groups—with JIC providing tools, guidance, and evaluation.
The Result
A locally led health program designed to continue without dependence on outside help.
Step One:
Understand the Problem
We don’t jump straight into designing a health program. First, JIC works with Maria to understand why women in her community are struggling with nutrition. Together, we develop simple ways for her to listen to local women and explore questions like: What foods are available and affordable? What makes healthy eating difficult? What do women already know about nutrition? What resources already exist?
Maria learns that cost is a part of the problem, but not the whole problem. Women also face limited time to cook, rely on convenient prepared foods, and have limited knowledge of inexpensive, nutritious recipes.
Now we understand the problem before trying to solve it.
Next, we look at what Maria’s community already has. There are women who know how to prepare affordable and nutritious meals, locally available foods, and even a kitchen at Maria’s church.
Rather than focusing only on what the community lacks, these existing strengths become part of the solution.
Step Two:
Build on What Already Exists
Step Three:
Find the Right Approach
While Maria gathers local knowledge, JIC researches what has been shown to work. We find evidence supporting practical nutrition education, hands-on learning, goal-setting, community role models and other behaviour-change approaches- but also recognize that education alone won’t solve genuine financial barriers.
We bring evidence together with what Maria has learned to design something appropriate for her community.
Step Four:
Equip Local Partners to Lead
Now we have a plan—but JIC would not fly into Cape Verde and run the program.
Maria, her church, and other local people lead the program. JIC works behind the scenes to help develop the materials, prepare the team, troubleshoot challenges and evaluate whether the program is actually helping. As the local team gains experience, JIC’s involvement decreases, The goal is not dependence on JIC- the goal is a local church equipped to continue serving women in its community.
So what might Maria actually do?
Together, we develop a 12-week program hosted at Maria’s church. Each week, women gather for practical activities such as:
Cooking affordable, nutritious meals together
Learning about nutrition using familiar, locally available foods
Setting small, realistic goals for their households
Learning from local women already preparing nutritious meals on limited budgets
How this Helps
We help the Church understand the problem, listen to women, recognize the strengths that already exist within the community, bring credible health evidence to the table, develop a locally appropriate response, and equip local people to lead it. In our example, Maria and her church are no longer wondering, “We see this problem, but what can we possibly do about it?” They now have a way forward.
They are using what already exists within their community, supported by evidence and the right tools, to strengthen the health and dignity of women around them. And rather than depending on JIC to run the program indefinitely, they are equipped to carry the work forward themselves.
Now women in her community feel confident they know how to feed themselves and their families nutritious, affordable meals and can pass those skills onto their children and the people around them.
This is what it can look like for the Church to be the hands and feet of Jesus—loving women not only in words, but through practical action that strengthens health, upholds dignity, and creates lasting change.