(ERGO) – After struggling for years to support her family single-handedly, Sahro Abduqadir Mohamud, 38, has surpassed her own expectations with the success of her tie-dye cloth business in Mogadishu’s Bakara Market.
She opened a shop in Bakara in January, where she now hires five people involved in dyeing cloth. After paying each employee $120 a month, she still takes home between $20-30 a day herself to support her five children.
“This work is important for me and my family and for the five people working for me,” said Sahro.
“Each of them has a family with either children, wife, mother, father, or siblings to support. They earn a monthly salary so they’re making a good living here.”
Sahro began in business eight years ago after her husband died of illness. She had a small loan and struggled for years to learn and establish connections. She sold women’s clothing from her house and scraped by making just a couple of dollars a day.
“The truth is, I started with very little money, just $200 that was given to me by a relative. All these years afterwards we are still in business, although I have been through many challenges and ups and downs,” she said.
However, she remained determined and the move to Bakara market led to her breakthrough.
“If you have something to wake up for, you get motivated. You get encouraged and energetic, but when you’re unemployed you feel lazy and stressed. This job has changed my situation very much,” she said.
She has moved out of the room they had in a relative’s house into their own rental house and enrolled her three older children in school for the first time in February.
Sahro advertises her clothes on social media and has customers in Mogadishu and other regions in Somalia where the goods are delivered.
Playing the two roles of parent and primary income earner has toughened her up, she admits, and also enabled her to reach her goal.
“Going out to earn an income was new to me. You can sense a mother’s struggle with her children’s lives, but I always felt that my children’s needs were not met due to their lack of education and financial resources,” she said.
“Now that I’ve started this work in my life, I feel motivated, very motivated…so thank God, if I have achieved my goal, I am happy to work for my children today, to take on the role of being both their father and mother.”
