Abdu Mahdi Ahmed Hamoud As-Salehi, a 35-years old worker from Tabih village in Bani Saleh sub-district from Wusab As-Safil district, is the breadwinner of his family consisting of 4 children and their mother and one of the Food Assistance for Assets (FFA) beneficiaries who benefited from the project that changed their living conditions to the best after receiving the cash assistance.
Abdu Mahdi was working as a daily worker who works several days each month carrying things on his back and have no others skills to work and can’t provide the basic requirements of food for his family. In addition to all that, the current 8-years armed conflict complicated the conditions of his live where he lost the opportunities to obtain work and to feed his family and also the hope in living in dignity which caused the debt accumulation on him and let him to think how to do in order to provide the initial necessities for his family until the intervention of the FFA project in his village which completely changed his live to the best.
Via the Promoting Resilience and Livelihoods project, the BFD and WFP targeted the road in Abdu Mahdi As-Salehi’s village to be rehabilitated as a community asset and therefore he has been selected among the targeted beneficiaries who will contribute to rehabilitate the road and receive cash entitlements as cost of food assistance to feed their families.
As a FFA beneficiary, Abdu Mahdi As-Salehi started the work in the first cycle with no skills in paving and cutting and forming the stones, but according to the project objectives that aim to enhance the capacity of beneficiaries and prepare them to obtain work opportunities after the end of project cycle along with obtaining cash assistance to feed them families and improve the living conditions, he worked beside the well skilled people in the road rehabilitation then he gained skills in paving and building and improved his capacities.
While working beside the skilled people, Abdu Mahdi As-Salehi learned the paving skills and how to cut and form the stones, in addition to the cash assistances that helped him to reduce his debts and improve the living conditions of him and his family. After the receiving the entitlements of the first three cycles of the project, he provided the necessary schools supplies for his kids who attended school while he found work in neighboring villages due to paving and building skills learned during his participation in the FFA activities implementation.
“Before the intervention of BFD in the rehabilitation of our village road, I was an unskilled person and I suffered from load debts, but the work within this project helped me to gain new skills in paving and building and to provide flour, rice, sugar, oil and other requirements for my family” said Abdu Mahdi As-Salehi during the interview led by the BFD communication team who visited him in home.
By the end of this project, he became capable to find a work in paving, building or stones cutting and forming in his area and in neighboring villages and he will depend on himself to feed his family and to respond to its basic necessities.
WFP and BFD work together in difficult conditions to reach the people who are in most need in isolated and in far distances areas in Yemeni rural region to achieve the joint goals including the providing of cash assistance for affected people by current armed conflict and rehabilitating the community assets.
