Sisters' Stories: 'I learned how to start and grow a business'

Amal is a 33-year-old displaced woman and mother of four, originally from Sinjar.

“My life before displacement was very difficult because my financial situation was so poor,” she says. “When I was younger, I was skilled at tailoring, but after getting married in 2014, ISIS entered Sinjar and destroyed and looted everything. They also took women and girls away and killed so many men.”

Amal and her children escaped to the mountains, which she calls “the only place that could protect us.” They stayed out in the open for 12 days without food and water, which was a plight suffered by thousands of other Yazidis too.

When Amal arrived at Essyan camp, she found life hard, but the only other choice was homelessness. A lack of money meant she couldn’t continue with her tailoring work, but she managed to save up with a friend to buy a shared sewing machine.

Eventually, she learned about the Lotus Flower through an advertisement in a women’s shop, and earlier this year saw that we were running a livelihoods initiative called She Leads in Food Security. “I participated in a course on nutrition, which benefitted me a lot because it taught us how to maintain our health,” she says.

“After that, I took a five-day business management course, which was very beneficial. I learned how to start and grow a business and how to manage it better. I was then selected to open a tailoring shop with the organisation’s support. I’m so grateful for the Lotus Flower’s assistance.”

Having recently ended, our She Leads in Food Security programme was delivered in partnership with CARE Iraq through Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH. The initiative focused on providing income-generating and agricultural initiatives, as well as awareness-raising around the climate crisis in Iraq, and the escalating need for sustainable solutions.

Although the project has finished for now, its long-term impact is set to continue – with Amal and other women like her now able to earn incomes for themselves and support their families.  

We’re so glad to see Amal making a success of her new business, strictly on her own terms…