(ERGO) – Yusuf Ali Jama has been collecting scrap metal for the last three months and selling it to a new Mogadishu-based firm processing metal for construction materials. He can make $150 for a ton of scrap and is earning a good living for his family of eight children.
They were displaced from Shalanbod, Lower Shabelle, in February 2022 after drought devastated their one-hectare farm where they used to grow vegetables, coriander, lemons, and watermelons. They have constructed a small makeshift house in Al-naim IDP camp in Deynile district.
He walks around car garages and other places in Hodan and Deynile and Howl-Wadag districts, looking for scrap suitable for recycling. He is much better off than when he was working as a porter with a handcart.
“There is a big difference between when you are unemployed and now when you can get something back using your efforts to find an income. We get two meals a day now, thank God,” he said.
The new firm, Overseas Neo Metallics Group (ONO), has provided work for 30 people in the city. Some are skilled workers, like Ahmed Mohamed Yusuf, who worked in a foundry in Saudi Arabia. He was deported back to Somalia and spent three years without a job. He now earns $15 a day, which enables him to support his family.
He says he is happy to be putting his skills to use at home, and to be independent of support from relatives. He has been able to enroll his seven children in school for the first time.
“My life turned around when I started working, I am happy and I thank God. I have now become independent through the job opportunity and I hope to learn more,” he said.
Abdalla Hussein, 26, a father of two, was out of work for two years. He cuts the recycled metal into items sold by ONM to the construction industry, such as rods, railing, and gates.
He had been planning to sell off his parents’ farmland in Awdhegle and migrate overseas using the income, but this job opportunity changed his perspective and created hope for him.
“I got this job through a friend working in garage, this job has certainly turned around my life. I get good income from this work, and I also learned other skills from this job,” he said.
The manager of ONM, Ibrahim Mohamed Ibrahim, said they plan to expand to 60 employees, with a mix of skilled and unskilled workers. Most are Somalis with some foreign skilled workers.
