IMC Helps African Refugee Women With Small Loans

I recently received the International Medical Corps’ April 2005 eNewsletter in my in box. Several days ago, I wrote about how small loans from the Mercy Corps’ to Afghan women had changed their lives. They achieved more freedom in their society with its strict customs regarding women. They often went from a day-to-day existence to a more secure financial position. The IMC also provides small loans to women. This month’s eNewsletter discussed how these loans can help a woman in a much more desperate situation than that of a small business woman in Kabul trapped in her house or draped in a burqa.

Empower a woman and you empower an entire community discusses the situation of refugee women in Africa. Many women become displaced in Africa, but they desperately want to go home. This is similar to what I discussed regarding Chechnya about a week ago. Even though life might be better in Ingushetia, there is still no place like home, so the Chechens are willing to endure even worse hardship to be able to return to Grozny. IMC talks about an Eritrean woman they helped. She had been a refugee in Sudan for 15 years. Eritrea had been in armed conflict with Ethiopia for four decades. Finally, things were calming down, and this woman, Tirhas, joined a UN convoy back home. There was no future for her children in Sudan, so she wanted to go back home where there would be hope they could lead better lives. However, the food situation is still very insecure in Eritrea.

Tirhas returned to an overwhelming situation. She was given one hectare of farmland, but it was a long distance from her home. She had no money, and she was unable to handle weeding and farming the plot. Her family sometimes went hungry, and her children began to miss school. Tirhas heard about IMC’s micro-credit program and received a small loan. But to her, it was more money than she had ever handled. With the loan, she was able to enroll in agricultural training and start a sesame farm. The loan enabled her to get help with weeding and harvesting. She was also able to buy a donkey and a small carriage to transport her and her sons to the farm. IMC also gave her advice. With this assistance, she was able to sell enough sesame to repay the loan, maintain her household, and send her children to school.
This goes to show how we, in developed countries, can completely change the lives of whole families and communities just by giving small contributions to organizations like IMC or the Mercy Corps. This small loan prevented disaster and another generation of misery and illiteracy for this family and enabled them to become productive, thriving citizens.