In March 2025, thousands of everyday gamers, readers, and creators came together to do something extraordinary.
Through a partnership between CARE and Humble Bundle, more than $340,000 was raised to support women around the world, in celebration of International Women’s Day and Women’s History Month.
Each purchase made on Humble’s platform acted like a modern-day CARE Package®, delivering more than just digital content to users. It delivered opportunity, dignity, and hope to women across the globe.
Funds raised through Humble Bundle’s campaign contributed to CARE’s Women’s Economic Growth Fund, helping CARE expand access to economic opportunity for at least 8,500 women. Women who are starting businesses, leading in their communities, and building brighter futures for their families. Together we’re helping women level up their futures.
2025 hasn’t been easy for women entrepreneurs. Global cuts to foreign assistance have made it harder for women to access capital, mobility, digital tools, and support. Yet, women entrepreneurs keep showing up.
Thanks to flexible funds from Humble Bundle for CARE’s Economic Growth programming, hundreds of women in Guatemala are now participating in CARE facilitated savings groups. They’re saving money, diversifying their businesses, and gaining confidence and stability to keep their families and communities resilient.
With support from CARE, women all over the world are turning challenges into opportunities: launching nature-based businesses in Colombia, creating and selling handicrafts in refugee camps, running food and garment businesses in Vietnam, and growing home gardens, family farms and daycare programs in Africa. Now more than ever, women are using digital tools to market their products, access loans, manage finances, and drive growth.
Here are some additional stories of women who have received support:
Stitching tradition into a digital future
In Multan, Pakistan, Shahjahan Begum’s entrepreneurial journey is rooted in resilience. Widowed at just 14, she began stitching embroidery to support her infant son and family. Over time, her craft grew into a thriving enterprise, titled Shah Fashion Collection, employing dozens of women specializing in handcrafted embroidery and beadwork.
Through CARE’s digital e-commerce and online marketing training, Shahjahan learned how to promote her work online. Orders jumped from 10 to over 50 per month.
Shahjahan eventually remarried, finding an equally committed and encouraging partner in her new husband, Iftikar.
With her husband’s support and her own determination, Shahjahan now works through Instagram and Facebook but dreams of expanding into global markets. For her, business is about more than income: it is also about community. She employs around 60 women, many of whom work from home, enabling them to support their households and gain new opportunities. She takes pride in teaching job skills to younger women so they can build careers and contribute to the enterprise.
Her advice to other women? “A woman should work with as much courage as she can muster. Standing on your own feet, you will succeed.”
Innovating through adversity in Pakistan
In the busy city of Rawalpindi, Pakistan, Barbra Safar is rewriting the rules of entrepreneurship with her unique business portfolio.
After the loss of her brother and the end of her marriage, Safar returned to her family home to care for her daughter, who lives with a mild intellectual disability, and stepped in to support them financially.
With an MBA from Fatima Jinnah Women’s University, she leveraged her education to slowly carve out a niche in the tailoring industry and started her own tailoring service. When the COVID-19 pandemic forced her to shut down her shop, Safar, undeterred, pursued an unexpected opportunity: mealworm farming.
Safar faced resistance from the start, even within her own home. While education for women was encouraged, pursuing work outside the home was met with hesitation.
Despite these barriers, Barbra remained steadfast.
Barbra gained digital marketing skills through CARE-supported training, allowing her to grow her customer base and connect with other women entrepreneurs. “It was a game-changer,” she says. “It built stronger ties and boosted our business.”
Looking ahead, Barbra aims to scale Urban Meal Worms, ensuring year-round production and supplying larger-scale feed manufacturers.
Despite cultural barriers and personal setbacks, Barbra has emerged as a confident leader—making business decisions, being her family’s breadwinner, and charting her own future.
From passion to progress
Living in the Peruvian Amazon, Micaela saw opportunity in the resources around her. She founded Wame, a family business that transforms the region’s largest fish, paiche, into a range of products using both its meat and scales. Michaela’s goal: to build a circular-economy enterprise that sustains local livelihoods and the environment.
Like many early-stage entrepreneurs, Micaela could not yet access formal loans. Through CARE-supported financial training, Micaela learned to strengthen her business plan, manage finances, and use digital tools to expand her reach. She now saves regularly, tracks business income separately, and sells confidently at trade fairs — even representing her community at the largest commercial fair in the region, where she sold her jewelry in U.S. dollars for the first time.
“Success comes step by step,” Micaela says. “But when you love what you do, every step is worth it.”
Why this work matters
Whether in Peru, Pakistan, or beyond, the barriers women face, like limited access to education, funding, or even permission to work, are real. As is their determination to develop skills and build a better life.
CARE’s economic growth work supports women to:
- Start and grow businesses
- Participate in savings groups and obtain financial services
- Gain digital skills and access new markets
- Build confidence and resilience
- Create opportunities for others in their community
Together, with Humble Bundle, we’re showing what’s possible when women are trusted, supported, and encouraged to lead.
Learn more about CARE’s Women’s Economic Growth programming.
