SALIMA HASSAN

My name is Salima, and I am from Dabel. I am 31 years old and second wife of my late husband. He died after suffering a heart attack on the night our livestock were stolen from our homestead by rustlers. These livestock sustained our livelihood, and my late husband supported our children and the family through them. The pain of losing my husband and the livestock was unbearable, because he left me when I was six months’ pregnant. The first wife, Mama Jillo, had died in childbirth three months earlier , so I was left to take care of her five and my own three children. Having no job and no savings to sustain my family, life became extremely hard, even agonizing. I would get up early to go to Moyale town so that I could help Ahmed clean his shop in exchange for a meal to take home to my starving children. He closed his shop after he was robbed and severely injured in the attack. I began carrying water on my back from our water point, which I would sell to some of the neighboring villages. Doing this job while pregnant was awfully hard but I had to provide for my children. Amidst all this stress I gave birth to a premature baby. She was so weak and cried constantly since I had no breastmilk because of a lack of food. She died after a few weeks, and this brought me much pain.

I am so happy to report that I received two goats from the Goat Project. The happiness on my children’s faces when I came home with these goats was very fulfilling. They sang and danced around the goats, made a shed for them, and named one of them Blessing, after the child I had lost. I will sell the milk and ghee, and with the money buy beans, vegetables, books, and pens for my children.