Turning Trash into Cash

Prepared:Abdallah Okao and Deman Mahamoud

Bakool, Somalia--Four years ago, 27-year-old Aisha Abdirahman had a vision: she signed up for a tailoring workshop, planning to sew clothes and sell them at the local market in order to support her family of eight. After completing the course, she purchased a sewing machine, but she did not have enough money left over to buy cloth. “It seemed like the end of my tailoring dream,” says Aisha.

Aisha and four of her six children. Until she attended IMC’s beekeeping course, she was barely able to put food on the table for her family.
Photo: IMC
Aisha and four of her six children. Until she attended IMC’s beekeeping course, she was barely able to put food on the table for her family.
After that, life was rough for a while. Aisha and her husband have six children, and with little reliable income and no future job prospects, taking care of their large family was tremendously stressful. “Many a time, we went without food,” she says. “One of my children became severely malnourished.”

Malnutrition and food insecurity are major problems throughout south-central Somalia where Aisha and her family live. The drought of 2005-2006 resulted in crop failure and, consequently, acute food shortages and a significant spike in the malnutrition rate. Cattle deaths due to lack of water were estimated at 80 percent; for many families, household assets plummeted.

In addition to responding with emergency interventions, International Medical Corps began strategizing about long-term projects that would enable Somalis to survive the inevitable future droughts without taking a heavy toll on their health and livelihoods.

IMC launched another livelihood program for mothers of malnourished children in Somalia which involved providing them with seed vouchers so that they could grow their own food.
Photo: IMC
IMC launched another livelihood program for mothers of malnourished children in Somalia which involved providing them with seed vouchers so that they could grow their own food.
Studies suggest that projects that help women become self-sufficient, acknowledging their role as caregivers, food producers and bread winners, can also help mitigate food insecurity and malnutrition. With that in mind, International Medical Corps created two livelihood projects aimed at providing income-generating opportunities to vulnerable women with malnourished children: one that gave them seed vouchers so they could grow their own food; and another that taught them beekeeping.

In 2006, Aisha attended a beekeeping workshop conducted by International Medical Corps. The course dramatically changed her life. Participants were trained in beekeeping, honey production, honey processing and marketing. They were also taught how to process and market wax from honeycombs, and how to use wax to produce candles and petroleum jelly, a product used to soften dry skin.

Aisha was particularly interested in producing petroleum jelly. After the training, she shared the concept with her husband. He was very supportive and agreed to collect honeycombs thrown away by other beekeepers for her so she could process them into wax, then transform them into petroleum jelly. Aisha sold her first products in the market town of Hudur. News of Aisha’s product, which was significantly cheaper than commercial varieties, spread rapidly. Soon, people from the neighboring El-Berde district were buying Aisha’s product in large quantities.

Now Aisha has a considerable market for her product in both districts. Once customers try it, they always come back for more. Each month she earns at least $200 from petroleum jelly sales alone; in Somalia, even an educated civil servant only earns about $30 a month. .

“My days of worrying about money are long gone,” says Aisha. “I now have sufficient income to look after my family. I’m able to provide them with food, clothes, medicine and other basic necessities.”

Using the income from the petroleum jelly business, Aisha has finally been able to realize her tailoring dream. “I can now afford to buy cloth and make clothes, which I sell at the market in Hudur,” she says. “I was also able to purchase a small quantity of gold as an investment for the future, and as my business grows, I intend to continue investing.”

In fact, Aisha has enough economic stability that she can now comfortably give back to the less fortunate, which is one of the fundamental teachings of Islam. She has trained three other women how to produce petroleum jelly, and she is committed to continuing to share her knowledge with other women in need. “I want a chance to help transform other people’s lives, just as IMC has transformed mine.”