Girma’s family was one of the Wag-Himra communities affected by the complex war and drought crises in Amhara in recent years. Due to those deplorable crises, those family members were displaced to other safe areas in order to protect their lives until the war ends.
After one and a half years of staying at the IDP camp in agonizing living conditions, the war had stopped. The family immediately returned to their original living place, hoping to restart and recover from the crisis. However, this turned out very difficult as they had lost their assets like their goats and cereal production for household consumption. This situation led to the children being exposed to several child protection risks, like unmet basic needs, school dropout, child labor, and malnutrition concerns.
Save the Children works with the JF-FS&CPiE consortium project funded by the German Federal Foreign Office (GFFO), which aims to improve the protection of vulnerable girls, boys, adolescent girls, and adolescent boys (<18 years) through access to quality child protection prevention, mitigation, and response services and supports. The strategy is driven by the enhancement of communities and local government capacities in Wag Himra Zone of Amhara Region to avert the underlying causes of child protection risks. All interventions are community-based. Through the Sekota field office, Save the Children has been implementing child protection and child safeguarding interventions in 4 kebeles in Sekota town Sekota Zuriya Woreda, 7 kebeles and Ziquala Woreda 7 kebeles. for the last 3 years ago.
One part of the JF-FS & CPiE sector interventions of the project is the IGA component, which has a detailed plan to support protection services for highly vulnerable households by providing start-up capital along with necessary inputs. such as capacity building training on business planning, financial literacy, as well as management and technical training on farm and off-farm business preparation for IGAs to strengthen their livelihood assets. The provision of start-up capital is a key aspect of the project’s activities. The JF-FS & CPiE project planned to provide 5430,000 Birr to 181 households in conflict-affected, drought-affected, and vulnerable households who are food-insecure and have no income or have lost their fixed assets. The start-up capital injection has benefited all targeted beneficiaries, but in particular, it is significant for some, such as Girma’s family.
After the JF-FS &CPiE Project provided capacity-building training support in life skills, food security, entrepreneurship, and financial literacy training, they also provided me with 30,000 ETB start-up capital. This humanitarian lifesaving assistant has helped me start a new life. Immediately transforming the recovered livelihood systems of my family, I am strengthened, building my attitude, life skills, and financial management skills. Currently, by managing properly in my small shopping business, I have fulfilled children’s immediate basic needs such as complementary foods, non-food items, scholastic materials, and medical expenses.
Finally, Girma told us, ‘’By the life-saving humanitarian assistance of Save the Children-GFFO-funded project, I completely turned my life around, I have overcome poverty, battled through depression, and am now able to stand on my own feet and support my children. I want to say that thankful for this project because now I am very glad, my children have attended school, good, healthy, happy, and recovered from trauma.”
This publication was produced with the financial support of the German Humanitarian Assistance
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