Turkish funded skills training gives hope, builds self-reliance among women in South Sudan

The Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TIKA) has helped vulnerable women in South Sudan to generate savings, enabling them to start small businesses.

Dusman Esther a mother of three is among hundreds of women to benefit a lot from the training she attended last year.

“I am very thankful for this project. TIKA’s help has made me realize that I am not poor, but rather I need to focus on eradicating poverty. Before this, I had no chance to save or plan. This is exactly what this project has taught me,” Esther told the dawn last week in Juba.

Esther said that since she started her work of tailoring, she has been getting good money compared to when she had no tailoring skills.

After completing her training for five months she was given sewing machine by TIKA.

“I am now comfortable with the work I am doing, I am benefiting a lot. I am not asking my husband now with basic things I used to ask him before, I am busy now with my work, there are a lot of changes,” Esther said.

 Esther who now operates her tailoring business within her home, urged other women to enroll for the free training that will transform their livelihoods.

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Salma Zubeir Ismail, a 30-year-old mother of four said that prior to enrolling for the training she was unable to pay school fees for her children.

“Before I attended the training by TIKA, my children were not in school but this year all my children are in school,” she said.

 Ismail has been able to take advantage of the start-up kits donated to her which has helped her to earn money for feeding her family.

 She added that the tailoring skills have transformed her daily earnings.

“I did not have any source of earning money, but now I have money and I am like other people who are working in the offices,” Ismail said.

 Ismail earns about 9 000 South Sudanese pounds per cloth she makes for a client.

 “What TIKA did is something very big to me, they trained me and gave me starting kits and this will feed me in my lifetime, nothing will change it,” she said.

 Ismail said that she has already trained about two of her family members using the sewing machine she got from TIKA.

Last year, TİKA provided 43 start-up kits comprising sewing machines, Kitenge fabric rolls, scissors, threads, needles, tape measures as well as 35 start-up kits comprising of sodium, sulphric acid, KDS, sodium hydroxide, color, perfume, formalin, and sodium triphosphate to 78 vulnerable women that successfully finished their trainings.

 “As the Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TİKA), we provided shoe making machines, sewing machines, embroidery machines, kick-wheel pottery machines and bead work machines, as well as consumables (beads, wires, pliers, scissors etc.) for the South Sudan Women Entrepreneurs Association in 2021. Hundreds of vulnerable women benefitted from this project up until today,” TIKA said in a statement.

It also provided 15 sewing machines and tailoring materials, as well as liquid and solid soap making materials for Women for Change in 2022. In addition, TIKA trained 100 disadvantaged trained for 4 to 5 months in tailoring.

“As the second phase of the Project in 2022 on training for tailoring and soap making with Women for Change, TİKA provided 43 start-up kits comprising sewing machines, Kitenge fabric rolls, scissors, threads, needles, tape measures etc.; as well as 35 start-up kits comprising sodium, sulphric acid, KDS, sodium hydroxide, color, perfume, fomaline, sodium triphosphate etc. for the 78 vulnerable women in total that successfully finished their trainings,” it said.

TIKA added that in 2023 it provided mixer and extruder machines as well as fuel-efficient stoves for the coal bricket making from organic waste to Lulu Care manual crusher.

At least more than 220 women will be trained to produce their own coal brickets from organic waste.

The Project also aims at reduction of gender-based violence as the women will be producing their own coal brickets instead of walking long distances in search of fire wood.

In 2023, TİKA plans to enroll about 100 vulnerable women for another tailoring and soap making training in the Gurei suburb of Juba.

 Since 2017, thousands of women benefitted from TİKA projects.