(ERGO) – An eight-month skills training package has enabled Jama Hassan Hamud to open his own welding business in Ainabo, Somaliland, to support his large family and also give opportunity to others.
Jama, 32, is making $250-300 a month from the business, which provides for his wife and 10 children.
Unemployment in this part of western Sool region is high. Jama had given up in 2015 and migrated to Saudi Arabia to find work, only to be deported in 2018 without anything. Since then, he has been depending on support from relatives as he couldn’t get a job.
“You can understand what it’s like for someone like me being expected to provide food, school fees, rent with no job,” Jama told Radio Ergo’s local reporter at this welding shop.
“There is a huge difference now, like between living in the dark or in the light. I can say I was constantly worried before but now I can manage.”
He enrolled four of his children in school for the first time in September costing $100 in school fees.
After the skills training provided by international NGO, Save the Children, Jama joined with two other trainees to pool the $2,100 investment cash they received to open the welding business last November.
Jama hired and trained three other young men as welders, including Deeq Osman Ali, 25, who repairs doors, windows, tanks, and furniture.
Deeq joined them on a $150 monthly wage that provides for his family.
“We’ve got a stable income now that we couldn’t get before from the market. Sometimes we were earning and sometimes we weren’t. But now we are doing well and I’m not worried about income. I’m very happy with this job, and other youths like me have got jobs,” said Deeq.
He used to make $2-3 doing odd building jobs and didn’t make enough for his wife and two young children. Although they are fortunate to own the land they live on.
“I was illiterate and didn’t have any skills, but today I use my hands and skills to earn my living,” said Deeq, who aspires to open his own mechanics shop when he can raise some capital.
The Save the Children project benefitted 35 young unemployed people in Ainabo, offering training and business start-up funds in plumbing, electrical wiring, welding, tailoring and henna decoration.
Asha Ahmed Hassan, a mother of eight, completed a six-month training in tailoring and received a sewing machine to start her business. The $100 a month she is earning helps the family as her husband working as a makes only about $2 a day.
“My children need food, drinks, when they get sick they need to see a doctor, and now I can afford to get them to hospital because I’m working, so there are many reasons I got into this tailoring business,” she said.
She spends $32 a month on school fees for four children. As she can’t afford shop rent, she tailors women’s clothes in her house. It’s not ideal, but it is a start.
“If I could get a shop I would move my equipment there and buy clothes to display in the shop, so people could buy readymade clothes and also get the tailoring services. Now I have a one-room house made of iron sheet where I am sewing whilst my children roam around. They’re young so I keep worrying they might damage things,” Asha said.
