UNIFEM Responds to the Tsunami Tragedy
Rebuilding Livelihoods
“We don't need any more free food. Give us the land and some tools; I want to grow some healthy food for my family.”
—Woman from IDP shelter in Aceh
Small grants to local partners are helping fill gaps in service delivery by targeting the specific needs of women, particularly IDPs, widows and women heads of households. Aided by UNIFEM, local women's groups are giving direct assistance to women to rebuild their small-scale businesses, while also providing skills training and market linkages to stimulate income generation and increase opportunities.
Aceh – To leverage the UN's cash-for-work programmes clearing debris and rubble to make way for reconstruction, UNIFEM provided immediate assistance to women craft makers, such as bangkuang weavers, to restart their economic activity and stimulate the local economy — bangkuang hats found a ready domestic market among workers in the cash-for-work programmes as protection against the sun. To-date, through vocational and business skills training and revolving credit facilities, nearly 450 women in IDP shelters in Aceh have resumed businesses such as pottery production, fish processing, garment trading and selling of traditional cakes. A mobile training unit is also teaching computer literacy and administrative skills to young people in remote locations to help them enter the job market. A UNIFEM microcredit fund — the UNIFEM Livelihood Facility Fund — will soon be launched allowing 10 local financial institutions to provide funds to small businesses run by women.- Sri Lanka – UNIFEM's partners have made start-up funds, tool kits and better machines available to women working in the coir, tailoring, baking and brick-making industries, and conducted training for young women to become health volunteers, pre-school teachers and psycho-social counsellors. Over 1000 beneficiaries have been reached to date. Siyath Foundation, UNIFEM's local partner in its home-based workers global programme, is taking the rebuilding of livelihoods a step further by seeking to mechanize the process of coir production, one of Sri Lanka's largest cottage industries typically filled by women. Coir production is backbreaking work and poses significant health risks for workers who have to stand in mucky water for long hours to harvest the coconut fibre. New machines have been purchased that are now owned and maintained by cooperatives of women, allowing them to earn their income more efficiently in better working conditions. Women craft-makers from 3 networks were supported recently to sell their products at the India International Trade Fair in New Delhi — this gave them market exposure and new sales contacts with South Asian, European and African buyers.
- Somalia – In the tsunami-affected fishing communities from Gara'ad to Hafun along the Northeast Coast, most women were involved in small-scale businesses related to fishing activities, including selling foodstuffs to fishermen, processing fish and mending nets. Because the tsunami hit during the high fishing season, it impacted severely on these communities, wiping out their stock and leaving them with nothing to survive the low season [4]. UNIFEM's programmes focused on helping women (especially heads of households) to restart their small-scale businesses, while also providing immediate food/cash assistance to sustain them when market activity was very limited. 153 women heads of households have so far received seed capital — each has an average family size of 6-7 members, and 70% are illiterate. Training in literacy and numeracy is also being provided therefore, especially after it was discovered that many women traders were often cheated by buyers because they could not count.
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[4] Pre-tsunami, 75% of income sources came from fishing-related activities. All households purchased 90-95% of their food needs using income from fishing, during the high season which runs from October to February (UNDP).