(ERGO) – Mohamud Ali, 43, opened a food stall place selling fresh fruit juices and basic dried food items, with a $500 cash grant he received last month from Danish Refugee Council (DRC), as part of a job creation project.
The income of $2-3 a day has enabled his wife to cook three meals a day for their four children for the first time since they came to Kheyre IDP camp in Abudwak, Galgadud, around a year ago.
They had been depending on irregular aid handouts and money from relatives and friends. They migrated to Abudwak in early 2017 at the height of the drought, after losing their 200 goats in Dhaqayabor, on the Somali-Ethiopian region.
Around 450 other families have benefited from the project in Abudwak and Guriel, according to Abullahi Elmi Ali, head of the local DRC office. Most have set up small business such as shops or eating places, livestock sales, and tailoring.
The local administration and the IDP camp leaders identified those who were struggling most to take part in the scheme. They participated in a three day training workshop before setting receiving a grant.
Maryan Barre Diiriye, a mother of eight, used her startup grant to open a stall outside Siligle IDP camp selling vegetables, meat and sometimes livestock. She told Radio Ergo she does not have any plans of returning to the rural area as their entire herd of 300 goats died.
For the first time, she has enrolled four of her children in school, using her own income to pay the $5 monthly fees for each of them. There was no school in their home Goofado village, in the rural area between Hiran and Galgadud regions.
