Empowering South Sudanese women through learning business and livelihood skills

By Scovia Faida Charles, Communications Officer

Rose Dongo, 70-year old and a mother of four, lost her husband during the 2017 conflict in Juba. Her two older children fled to Uganda leaving her behind with the two younger ones. Rose, along with many other women are beneficiaries of World Vision’s urban cash transfer training program in Juba.

She was registered to the training program in February 2019 but couldn’t finish because she got into an accident on her way to the market where she sells vegetables to sustain herself and her children. Staying in a rental house in Juba, she expressed her joy saying, “I am learning a lot from the trainings especially on how to use the cash wisely and also how to do home gardening.”

She adds, “I joined the program as it assists people like me who struggle with old age with business and farming skills. My two sons dropped out of school in primary five because I cannot support them. With this program from World Vision, I will surely be able to send them back to school, pay rent and also use the other money for my business.”

The Juba Urban Cash for Training Programme funded by the World Food Programme (WFP) assists around 84,000 people with a monthly assistance in form of cash after then have completed the training. They are grouped in various centres where they are further sub-divided into smaller groups of about 50 to 70 people.

At least 71 percent of these are women. The training includes business skills, home gardening, social protection, food security and nutrition and hygiene promotion.

From the 1st to the now 5th phase of the program, World Vision continues to assist these vulnerable old women and created opportunities for them to become more economically self-reliant as small-scale entrepreneurs. Assistant field officer Achari Godfrey Isaac said the program is focused on food security and livelihood to help address hunger in the country.

He further stressed that the program is progressing as planned and it is gradually meeting the targeted number which is 14,000 vulnerable people for this phase.

World Vision’s humanitarian work in South Sudan supports over 1.5 million across the country with various programs on food security, health and nutrition, water, sanitation and hygiene, protection and education.