Has anyone here ever heard of these refugees? I know that I didn't even know they existed.
An indigenous Sahrawi woman walks outside her tent in al-Smara desert refugee camp in Tindouf, southern Algeria, March 4, 2016. (photo by REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra)
Amid decreasing aid, Sahrawis seek self-sufficiency
TINDOUF, Algeria — Sahrawi refugees have been dependent on humanitarian aid to meet their basic needs for more than four decades. They live on support provided by the United Nations or other civil society organizations to help improve everyday life in the refugee camps. However, as such help is decreasing with the refugee crisis spreading across Europe and the Middle East, some Sahrawis are becoming entrepreneurs.
SUMMARY⎙ PRINTA Sahrawi woman's successful business of producing traditional garments is helping other Western Sahara refugees support themselves in Algeria after decades of dependency on aid organizations.
AUTHORHabibulah Mohamed LaminPOSTEDMay 25, 2016
Ambarka Mohamed Salem decided to turn humanitarian assistance into an opportunity for Sahrawi women to become self-sufficient. Like her peers, she fled the Moroccan-occupied territory of Laayoune, in the disputed Western Sahararegion, when she was 10 years old.
“I first arrived to the camps with my parents on Dec. 25, 1975,” she told Al-Monitor. Forty-one years later, Mohamed Salem is the director of a factory that makes "melhfas," a traditional garment for Sahrawi women. The project, which began June 5, 2013, is financed by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), a government agency. The factory, made of mud bricks, is surrounded by sand. Inside it, 18 women work six hours a day, six days a week. The type of melhfa made there measures 6 meters by 1.6 meters (20 feet by 5 feet). "It is made of imported cloth from Mauritania,’’ Mohamed Salem said.
Read more:
Amid decreasing aid, Sahrawis seek self-sufficiency
An indigenous Sahrawi woman walks outside her tent in al-Smara desert refugee camp in Tindouf, southern Algeria, March 4, 2016. (photo by REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra)
Amid decreasing aid, Sahrawis seek self-sufficiency
TINDOUF, Algeria — Sahrawi refugees have been dependent on humanitarian aid to meet their basic needs for more than four decades. They live on support provided by the United Nations or other civil society organizations to help improve everyday life in the refugee camps. However, as such help is decreasing with the refugee crisis spreading across Europe and the Middle East, some Sahrawis are becoming entrepreneurs.
SUMMARY⎙ PRINTA Sahrawi woman's successful business of producing traditional garments is helping other Western Sahara refugees support themselves in Algeria after decades of dependency on aid organizations.
AUTHORHabibulah Mohamed LaminPOSTEDMay 25, 2016
Ambarka Mohamed Salem decided to turn humanitarian assistance into an opportunity for Sahrawi women to become self-sufficient. Like her peers, she fled the Moroccan-occupied territory of Laayoune, in the disputed Western Sahararegion, when she was 10 years old.
“I first arrived to the camps with my parents on Dec. 25, 1975,” she told Al-Monitor. Forty-one years later, Mohamed Salem is the director of a factory that makes "melhfas," a traditional garment for Sahrawi women. The project, which began June 5, 2013, is financed by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), a government agency. The factory, made of mud bricks, is surrounded by sand. Inside it, 18 women work six hours a day, six days a week. The type of melhfa made there measures 6 meters by 1.6 meters (20 feet by 5 feet). "It is made of imported cloth from Mauritania,’’ Mohamed Salem said.
Read more:
Amid decreasing aid, Sahrawis seek self-sufficiency
