Since 2003, the Darfur region of western Sudan, has been the site of terrible violence, rape, death, and displacement. More than three thousand villages have been looted and burnt down, over 350,000 people have been killed, and more than two and a half million displaced. Today, most people in Darfur are either long-term internally displaced persons (IDPs), or inhabitants of remote villages that lack proper services. Access to capital is brutally scarce as Darfur harbors a complex interlay of impoverished communities and national allegiances. Women are the most vulnerable segment of the society. Survivors of the atrocities, most of whom are now widows, bare the sole responsibility of raising their families.

 

Can we help them?

Rural women in Darfur in collaboration with Malam Darfur Peace and Development (a local nonprofit organization in the region) have come up with an initiative to establish a microfinance bank (Al-Mayarim). Al-Mayarim Bank aims to raise $100,000 to microfinance 1000 women. Any Amount of your generous donation will empower a woman in Darfur to be financially independent, open a business, raise a family, and send kids to schools.

 

 

How does it work?  

Al-Mayarim gives each woman a collateral-free interest-bearing loan of $100 accompanied by business training. These loans have supported projects ranging from small food stalls, tea shops, and handcrafts to medium scale animal husbandry operations. Each woman who is interested in breeding animals is lent five goats or sheep. The family immediately benefits from the milk and can sell the extra milk and yogurt. In two years, this small flock will at least double. They can then pay off their loan by passing on 5 kids to another poor family keeping the rest of the flock to provide steady income.

 

Success stories

Since it was initiated last September 2018, Al Myarim Bank has managed to microfinance hundreds of women entrepreneurs. Among those women Hawa and Saadiya.

Hawa is a woman with a dream. She only has two goats as capital in this life, but she hopes to send her nine children to school and help them get proper education.  Saadiya owns nothing in this world but a small cooler that she uses to carry and sell homemade popsicles. She does not have enough capital to sustain this small business. Instead, she borrows popsicle ingredients from a local merchant and as a result returns much of her revenue to him each day.  What she needs to be independent and to grow her business is capital for ingredients and a small fridge powered by solar PV.

 

There are countless ambitious, visionary, yet desperately poor women in Darfur who have great business ideas but no access to capital. In a region that lacks basic service infrastructure it is impossible to find any lender institutions. Please do not let these women think that that part of the world is closed off to them. With my dollar and your dollar, we can open the world to Hawa, Saadiya and many others.

 

 

Resources

Malam Darfur Peace and Development https://www.malamdarfur.org

About Al-Mayarim Bank https://www.malamdarfur.org/2019/02/21/al-mayarim-bank/