“Everything has changed in my life, I am very happy,” says Rachidatou. We tell the story of her life from the end, because as a child she had no reason for joy at all. Today is the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. A great opportunity to see what tools we use at the Good Factory to keep winning this fight.

Rachidatou’s parents died when she was young. She spent her childhood with her grandmother, helping her on the farm and with the household – there wasn’t much time left for school. After that, things only got worse. She found herself in the home of her distant family. She learned what hunger and humiliation meant.

We meet the beneficiary of our project in Burkina Faso in the capital of Senegal. A heatwave is currently sweeping through the city. The rains have stopped, but it is still humid and hot. Even the Senegalese are fed up. Rachidatou doesn’t complain about the weather, she doesn’t complain about anything. Until two months ago, she didn’t know what would happen to her next. Her country and family had given her neither roots nor wings. Gosia Tomaszewska, who heads our project in Burkina Faso, asked for help. “She is a very good girl who is plagued on all sides by bad people. We have to help her,” she wrote. Just before the start of the school year at the Maria Goretti Foyer in Dakar, Sr Ewa agreed to take Rachi under her wing.

Supported by the Good Factory and you, the vocational school for girls in Senegal proved to be the best place for our charge from Burkina Faso. The idea is not to keep helping her, but to create the conditions for her to gain skills and confidence.

The first month has passed, Rachi is smiling. She has more and more friends who invite her to visit their families at weekends. Her previously inaudible, shy voice has become much stronger. In Dakar, she is currently getting a professional education that will change her life forever. Foyer graduates are not worried about employment. It is the employers who are trying to get them to agree to work for them.

Rachi is no longer hungry, she feels accepted. She absorbs the new knowledge like a sponge. Today, exercises in the kitchen – Vietnamese specialities for lunch. Help us to provide help. The Good Factory is not about problems. It is a story about the people we meet, for whom help is tailor-made!