Imagine . . .

A friend sends you a website link. You assume it will be another cooking and recipe website with videos of famous chefs in test kitchens. Instead, what you find is The Global Kitchen – a visual feast of women from around the world sharing recipes and connecting around food, family, travel and life. Immediately, you are drawn into the kitchen of Marta, a 42 year old mother of five from Peru, who is cooking her traditional dish of Arroz con Pollo. You can almost smell the aroma of spices and taste the chicken as you listen to her stories of secret family recipes and techniques handed down through generations. You momentarily forget that you are not half a world away, in Marta’s kitchen, getting a private cooking lesson.

When you click on another video you are transported to the open-air market in her village. As you accompany Marta while she does her daily shopping, she shares the challenge of earning enough to pay the fees for her daughters to attend school. She confides her dilemma between leaving her home and children to take a job in the city, or not being able to afford for her daughters to get an education. She explains that if she only had 300 soles ($100) to raise her own chickens, she could pay the girls school expenses and start a business.

You are so moved by her story that you want to help her. But what can you do to make a difference in Marta’s life? Then you realize you already have. By watching her video, you have joined The Global Kitchen family - a unique community of women empowering those in need worldwide. But you are compelled to do more to help Marta reach her dream, so you decide to provide a small loan. It is a fairly insignificant amount to you, but you realize it can change her life. This will help her become self-sufficient by starting a business selling eggs and poultry at the market. Afterward you imagine how excited Marta will be when she learns a woman she has never met, cares enough about her to provide the money she needs. And you reflect on how amazing and fulfilling it is, that you can directly impact a woman's life half way around the world.

\"In this plate of food, I see the entire universe supporting my existence.\"
(Zen Blessing from Thich Nhat Hanh)