Commitments and Struggles Drive Your Success

My mother and father separated when I was very young, and my grandmother who lives in a remote village called Karin, which is 20 km away from Erigavo in Sanaag region of Somaliland took responsibility of me as my mother was not able to manage alone financially. I grew up rearing livestock. We had many goats, sheep, camels and cattle and I spent most of my days with them looking for pasture and water.

I had never attended school as my grandmother needed support with the livestock. My life soon changed as I got married quite young at the tender age of 17. I fell in love with a young boy in my neighbourhood and run away with him, despite my grandmother’s objections. We struggled financially as neither of us worked and argued constantly and he soon became abusive and I got divorced less than a year after leaving my grandmother. I went back to my grandmother embarrassed and ashamed as she warned me not to marry him but she forgave me and took me back in and lived with her and my mother who had returned to our village. As both my grandmother and mother aged, it fell on me to take care of them as the only one with no other family commitments.

The three of us ran a small teashop which my mother used to run while I used to manage and take care of my old grandmother. In the last year (2016), one day my mother went to collect firewood from the jungle to make food. Unfortunately, she got a hand injury and since there was no doctor in the village, she did not get any treatment or medical care. The injury got inflamed and developed infections which lead to my mother getting severely sick. As a result the tea shop ran down as she was the main one taking care of the finances but also because there was a drought, meaning no one had any money to spend. My mother travelled a 10-hour drive to Hargeisa from Erigavo to receive medical treatment and we were crippled with debts. She spent four months in Hargeisa during her recovery time.  

In 2017, CARE started the Enhancing Resilience Reintegration (ERR) project in our villages which targets women in need of financial support and established Village Saving and Loan Associations (VSLAs) in our villages. I had some idea about VSLAs because there were some VSLAs which CARE had established previously in our villages which my grandmother used to be a member of. My biggest worry after my divorce was how I would be self-sufficient, as I had no education or experience.

CARE ERR project started VSLAs and I decided to join. A Village Savings and Loan Association (VSLAs) is a group of 10 - 25 people who save together and take small loans from those savings. The activities of the VSLAs run in ‘cycles’ of about nine months to one year, after which the accumulated savings and profits are shared out among the members according to the amount they have saved.

My main goal was to get a loan from the VSLAs and start a small business that would eventually grow and allow us to be financially stable and not worry constantly about money.  After three months, I received 40 USD as a loan, which I used to re-open my mother’s teashop as the worst of the droughts had passed and people were now recovering. It was a great opportunity because my mother’s teashop materials and furniture like tables and chairs were still available.  I spent this money to buy all of the supplies I needed to run the teashop, like tea, sugar and milk.  

I am very appreciative of being able to join the VSLA and take a loan from them. Immediately I started to clear the loan and within 5 months I took a new loan. Today, I have my small shop and also a tea shop, and my mother is better, and so she has started to run her teashop as well. Every day I save one dollar to repay the loan—without commitment and struggle there is nothing. You have to take action to survive or demonstrate your power.

It is not easy to repay a loan from a VSLA, many have failed but my social credibility and reputation has improved. There is also greater interconnection and solidarity in the community through the social fund we give each other in the VSLA groups to those who have faced death, health issues and calamities in their family.  

As I missed the opportunity to learn something during my childhood, through the ERR project I started to learn to read and write as CARE offered free literacy and numeracy classes in our village. Like me, most of the VSLA members in our village are illiterate. I realize now that education is key in life, so I have to learn something to manage my business and change myself. In my shop I would usually call someone to record my shop transactions, sometimes they would be busy and begging someone for help did not feel good. I am now able to record my own business transactions. I want to learn more so that I can run my business successfully. There is the opportunity to start non-formal education classes, and so I am campaigning all of the illiterate members to join me, and we can start to learn together.

Ifrah is 25 years old, divorced and lives with her mother and grandmother in Karin villages in Erigavo district of Sanaag Region of Somaliland where CARE is implementing a project funded by BMZ, which focuses on community resilience and women economic empowerment in the rural and pastoralist’s community. Ifrah is a business entrepreneur in Karin who manages different business sources in her villages including, a teashop, a small retail shop, selling honey, skin & hides. She is the only source of income for her family.  

The VSLAs approach provides simple savings and loan facilities in communities that do not have access to formal financial services and empowers members of whom nearly 80% are expected to be women to manage resources and invest them for the benefit of their households. The activities of the VSLA run in ‘cycles’ of about 9 months to one year, after which the accumulated savings and profits are shared out among the members according to the amount they have saved. The VSLA approach is therefore expected to lead to increased household assets and diversified livelihoods at household thus offering promising prospects for household resilience. Furthermore, the project shall capacitate the VSLA groups to take on awareness raising responsibilities around health, hygiene and sanitation in their communities.


By: Mohamed Abdirahman, Monitoring and Evaluation officer Sanaag RWP CARE Somalia/Somaliland