Being forced out of home to seek refuge comes with a lot of challenges. This is truer for refugee women who face a lot of extra ordinary challenges while forging life in exile. Women are often depicted as individuals in need of aid and support, but what is frequently overlooked is their remarkable potential as entrepreneurs. Limited access to resources, gender- based barriers, and trauma following forced displacement put women in difficult position.
However, despite these obstacles, many refugee women engage in vast income generating activities as a means of survival and empowerment. This is a clear manifestation of untapped potential, resilience, and creativity that when supported can transform their lives and their communities. Therefore, supporting these women in business is not just an act of charity, but a strategic and necessary step towards fostering economic development, gender equality, and social stability. In this blog, I will explore why financing and funding refugee women in business is essential and highlight real examples of the incredible impact your support can make. By the way I write this, as a young mother who has known nothing else apart from living as a refugee all my life and experiencing all the brutal challenges that come with it.
Refugee women face a unique set of challenges that often hinder their ability to thrive. To mention just two, limited access to capital and financial services. This means that traditional financial institutions often hesitate to provide loans to refugees, especially women since they don’t have most of the requirements to acquire such loans. These Requirements include; property (land, houses) certificates, and a Ugandan National Identity Card among others. For most refugee women being uprooted from their homes often means losing access to networks, resources, and educational opportunities. Also, many refugee women face societal norms that discourage female entrepreneurship, further limiting their opportunities. But the hardest thing for the refugee women I live with is being sole providers. In most of the families in refugee communities, women are widows hence they are sole providers of livelihood to their children and the elderly which is so challenging and stressful.
Real-Life uplifting example. Maombi, a refugee from Congo, was resettled in Kyaka II refugee settlement following insurgencies back home. With no income and little hope, she borrowed money from her relatives from USA to start a food vending stall in Bukere Food Market (Bukere is a trading centre found in Kyaka II Refugee Settlement). With training in business management, Maombi has been able to expand her business and now she employs three more women. In one of my business assessments to explore how Kuza Refugee Business Platform can help Maombi expand and create more jobs for other many unemployed women and girls in the refugee camp, this what Maombi had to say;
“This business has changed my family life, I can support my children with quality basic needs and also extend a helping hand to the orphans in the neighborhood as well as the elderly” Maombi notes while sharing her success story.
Today Maombi has not just positively impacted food service delivery but she also supports her family and the needy. She has also influenced fellow women to engage in small scale businesses. But Maobmi notes that if she had access to finance and funding, she would do much more. Much more means more jobs, and more self-reliance for other refugee women. Maombi is lucky that she has relatives who were resettled in the US who helped her with capital. Her colleagues in business don’t have the social network to enable those access capital and finance. They lack one thing. They cannot access finance and funding just because they are refugees. What we are doing at REBU is to support the likes of Maombi’s colleagues to create many Maombis. This is because when refugee women succeed in business, the benefits extend far beyond their individual circumstances. Supporting refugee women businesses promotes economic empowerment and self-reliance, gender equality, encourages innovation, builds resilience and social stability as well as reducing dependency on Aid.
In conclusion therefore, supporting refugee women who are involved in business is not just a moral imperative, it’s a catalyst for positive change. The benefits of empowering these women extend far beyond the individual level. Through entrepreneurship, refugee women in Uganda’s refugee camps can regain control over their lives, challenge gender-based barriers, and contribute to the local economy. The impacts of such support are profound and far-reaching, not only for refugee women themselves but for their families, and their communities at large. It’s time to recognize the invaluable contributions of refugee women in business and to invest in their future. The success of one woman can inspire an entire generation, creating a ripple effect that can transform entire communities.
Join us in making a difference today.
By Mary Musengimana