(ERGO) – Despite the backbreaking dusty work and lack of tools, 105 women living in displacement camps are busy every day collecting gravel near Mogadishu’s Jazira beach to sell to building sites to make a living for their families.
Halimo Hassan Mohamed, a single mother of eight living in Igadabagee IDP camp in Deynile district, said she has been making $200 a month since starting gravel collection last July. She used to earn just a couple of dollars doing laundry jobs.
“This work has changed our situation a lot, I used to wash clothes but now I collect gravel, I get a living for my children. I was struggling to find meals for my children, but thanks to God I can provide for my children,” she said.
She has moved her children to a one-room iron-sheet house, spending $200 from her savings to shift from the shack they lived in for the past five years. She has also enrolled four of her children in a local school for the first time. The school offered free education for two of her children, and she pays $14 for the two others.
“I couldn’t get education for my children before, they stayed at home because I couldn’t afford their fees, I couldn’t even provide enough food,” she said.
She has paid off the $50 debts she had at local stores and so can access more credit. Although the work is arduous and she uses her hands, without tools, she values the regular income it provides.
She and her family were displaced from Bardera in Gedo region after river floods destroyed her shop worth $2,000.
Another mother of four working at the site, Faay Osman Ali living in Al-Nasri camp in Kahda, has saved $300 to set up a stall selling vegetables, sweets, and other items that brings in an extra dollar a day.
She opens the stall early in the morning and hands over to her niece before going to the gravel site.
“We are now doing better; we used to get one meal a day but we now get all three meals,” said Faay, who used to earn $2-3 a day portering.
Faay and her family were displaced from Hudur, Bakool region, in 2017 after drought killed all her 100 goats.
The women have formed their own committee to solve disputes and lay ground rules, chaired by Muno Ibrahim Ali, one of the first women to start working at the gravel site.
According to Muno, one of the main challenges are thieves stealing the gravel they have piled at night awaiting collection by builders. For each truckload they earn $30.
“After all our hard work collecting gravel people come to steal it and often carry it away in their cars. We have just lost some gravel and we don’t know where it went, we leave it to God,” she said.
The women walk long distances of 10-15 kms from their IDP camps to this privately owned site in Jazira, where they don’t have any lease arrangement. However, despite the hard physical aspects, Muno said other domestic jobs are becoming harder to find and many women prefer this option as a means of earning a stable income.
