(ERGO) – Nurto Adan Ishaq, 43, and her family are celebrating leaving the Baidoa IDP camp where they had been living for five years for a new life in the town, thanks to this mother’s hard work and initiative.
In February, Nurto opened a new shop in Baidoa town that brings in an average daily income of $20, meaning her family can afford food, rent, and education and no longer depend on irregular aid handouts in the camp.
“We thank God 100%. I am happy now unlike when we arrived here. We used to depend on the other IDPs for food, but thank God as we now get all three meals and we thank God!” she said.
She has enrolled her four children in local Al-Abaaro school paying $40 monthly fees. They have moved into a rental house in Baidoa after saying goodbye with little regret to their former home in Mubarak IDP camp.
“I have children and we sometimes struggled to get a glass of water! We shared porridge or beans with the neighbours. My sister used to help me with my children’s education but I take care of their fees myself now,” she said proudly.
Nurto began as a businesswoman collecting and selling firewood. It was arduous work, walking six kilometres carry the wood back to the camp on her back. From her sales of $4-5 a day she put aside some small savings with which she bought food items to resell in small amounts for an equally small profit in the camp. She also hawked clothing in the streets before starting a table shop in the camp.
“I collected firewood on my back and God blessed my work. But I’m very happy now. I began buying sugar to sell in small sachets of 2,000 shillings. Then I’d get one kilo of sugar, then a kilo of flour. Now I’m also selling clothes in my shop, and I thank God for where I am now,” she said, describing the evolution of her business.
The shop in Baidoa is doing well and she buys supplies that need one to three donkeys to deliver. Her husband, 51, has had diabetes for three years and mostly stays at home, leaving Nurto as the family’s sole provider.
Having lost their 20 goats and five cows during the terrible drought of 2017 in their home village of Shibeele in Bardale, 58KM from Baidoa, Nurto fancies owning livestock again, although her circumstances are now very different.
“I am now starting to buy goats and keep them at home. I’m not living like we did previously, thanks to God, we are now city people. I’m now a business owner and I can even help other people,” she said.
Despite the discouraging conditions that most IDPs live in, dependent on aid and other charitable handouts, Nurto believes she exemplifies how people can take charge and change their lives. She invested $150 of her own money as start-up finance for one of her neighbours to open a table shop.
“I have helped many impoverished families in the camp. I helped one neighbour to set up her own table shop, that was the first person I helped like that and I hope to help others, a second, third, fourth and fifth person from the camp,” she said.
The IDP families elected her to be the camp leader in Mubarak as they have seen her to be an active person, encouraging other women to invest in businesses to support their families. She has appointed a
deputy to focus on daily matters in the camp and she herself visits to help in dispute resolution and to work on new projects in the camp.
Nurto has an ambition to give her children an education up to university level as her business continues to thrive. She also hopes to revive their three-hectare farm in their home village in Bardale.
