In 2016, Nanziza* and her six children were forced to flee their home in the Democratic Republic of Congo when rebels attacked their neighborhood. Nanziza’s husband was at church at the time of the attack, so Nanziza was forced to flee without him. After more than a month of traveling, Nanziza and her children arrived in Nairobi in February 2016. RefugePoint began working with Nanziza and her family eight months later, in October 2016. At that time, Nanziza was taking care of three unaccompanied minors in addition to her six children.
Nanziza ran a successful business selling oranges in Nairobi for many years. After receiving RefugePoint support for two years, including counseling, education assistance, food support, and livelihoods support, Nanziza became self-reliant and exited from social and livelihood services in September 2018. Despite being sick for more than a year, the family had been doing quite well.
During her illness, two of Nanziza’s children worked to support the household expenses, and RefugePoint supported the family with a one-off food intervention and medical support.
Due to the pandemic, the two children who had been working were forced to stop due to a lack of employment opportunities. With no source of income for the household, Nanziza decided to approach her suppliers and negotiate with them for a line of credit for supplies to help her get back on her feet. Since Nanziza had built a strong relationship with the suppliers, they did not hesitate to advance $80 worth of goods to Nanziza to help her restart her business.
Nanziza now earns close to $4 a day, which allows her to cover household needs and slowly repay her suppliers. Nanziza demonstrates self-reliance through her ability to utilize social capital to get the necessary financial capital to revive her business. This is the resilience that RefugePoint is proud to see in clients after they’ve graduated from services.
*Name changed for protection