Khadidja, an independent female entrepreneur

Finding support through HI

Khadidja is 27 years old. Following a fall when she was 2 years old, she suffered from atrophy in her right leg and was obliged to wear an orthopaedic prosthesis.

"I fell off a donkey in the village,” Khadijah explains. “As they could not treat me there, my family took me to N'Djamena. The doctors told me that I had to be treated in France but we couldn't afford it. Later, my family was able to buy a prosthesis. After the prosthesis broke, an acquaintance advised me to go to the Diguel counter where HI could help me. HI repaired my prosthesis and gave me a grant to start my business.”

As a young single mother, Khadidja supports her two children alone. Since 2018, she has been accompanied daily by HI teams as part of an economic inclusion project. She has benefited from technical assistance services for mobility to repair her prosthesis and an income-generating activities grant.

Khadidja starts a business

With the support of the HI teams, Khadidja has her mobility and now has a stall where she sells cereals. This activity allows her to feed her family, to find accommodation, to look after herself and to send her children to school. The savings generated by her business have also enabled her to invest in a sewing machine to start a small sewing workshop. 

Khadidja's newfound autonomy is now helping her to plan for the future:

"Since my business is doing well, I would like to expand my activities and buy a motoried tricycle to make it easier for me to get around and collect the goods I sell. I would also like to build an extra room to better accommodate my children.”