Zainah, a twenty-year old widowed young woman from Al-Khawbah Sub-district of Al-Luheyah District, -Hodeida Governorate, has a two-year-old son and a four-year-old daughter. Zainah said, “My husband was working for daily wages, and we lived in a house made with zinc plates. After I became pregnant with my son, my husband died, and me and my children began to suffer from severe poverty. I became a young mother of children suffering from malnutrition” The only thing Zainah could do was to borrow money from other people, and that increased her debts. She decided to move to live in her father’s house whose financial condition was so difficult. She was patient and lived a life full of hardships. Her brothers provided her with what they could, but it was not enough to cover basic needs so her suffering was limitless. Zainah's brothers work as fishermen at the sea for small daily wages and if they worked for a day, they would not find work for the rest of the week.
Zainah was among the beneficiaries of the unconditional cash assistance intervention implemented in the district, and after the first cash distribution round, her life began to change for the better as she started to be able to provide food for her children such as milk and fruit and other things they needed. After the second round, she paid off some of her debts and used the rest of the cash for household expenses. Month after month Zainah’s life began to improve, “Praise be to God, and thanks to the organization”, she said. Then she thought of a small project and bought a sewing machine by instalment system so she could work on it and help her children and her father as well with daily life expenses. Zainah paid the instalments after each cash distribution round until she completed all payments in the fifth round
Zainah said, “I paid off my debts and now I have income from this assistance. I no longer need people, and I now rely on myself and have a source of income for my family”
The unconditional emergency cash assistance for food project, implemented by Life Makers Meeting Place Organization (LMMPO) and funded by the YHF, targeted the most vulnerable displaced families living in IDP sites in Rub’ Al-Hajn, Rub’ al-Hadrami, and Al-Khawbah sub-districts in Al-Luheyah District, Hodeidah Governorate. The project targeted 592 families including Zainah’s family, and the cash assistance was provided in six rounds (months) started in July 2023 and ended in December 2023 as each family received an amount that equivalent to $121 (63,500 to 64,000 Yemeni Riyals)