Khabar Khair (Only Good News) – Fatima Rashed

The Social Fund for Development – Aden implemented 1,949 projects in the first quarter of 2021 AD. These projects were distributed over the governorates of Aden, Lahj, Al Dhale’e, and Abyan.

The number of projects implemented in Aden reached 379, 404 projects in Abyan governorate, and 333 projects in Al Dhale’e governorate, while the number of projects implemented in Lahj was the largest, with 833 projects.

Fouad Taher, deputy director of the Fund in Aden, said, “The Fund works according to a well-thought-out plan, and thanks to the grants provided by donors, businessmen and merchants, we work through initiatives and local authorities, and the society complements the initiative”.

Taher added, “We invented the idea of ​​cash for work, and this is through training. We no longer give money or food baskets, as we found that this system makes the society dependent and passive, but the cash-for-work system activated productivity”.

Nahmat Success Story with the Fund

Nahmat Al-Saadi, one of the beneficiaries of the Fund’s projects, said, “Since I joined the Fund, my professional life has begun to take a different direction”.

About her suffering, Nahmat recounts, “Like any university graduate, I was shocked by the reality of the country, so I could not get a job opportunity that matches my university qualifications, which forced me to work in a telecom shop, then a cashier, and I also worked as a teacher, and I had a small salary of only 12 $ a month”.

Nahmat continues her interview with “Khabar Khair” (Only Good News) website, “Given my family’s financial situation, I had to search for another job, so I worked in a private school for children. I used to tutor them in their homes in the afternoon”.

She says, “After many follow-ups with the Fund, I received a call from them informing me of my participation in the PRA course. This course was a motivation for me, and after that I participated in different courses, and through these courses, I worked as a consultant, and I went to different areas to provide initial studies on the social side”.

Nahmat confirms that the Social Fund left a deep imprint on her personal and professional life, and she attributes her success to the cadres that trained her in the Fund, which enabled her to deal with the suffering of people.

The Fields in which the Fund Is Active

With its projects, the fund targets various sectors and fields. In the field of education, the fund implemented a program for reading and functional literacy, as part of the components of access to non-formal basic education services, which targeted 816 male and female students distributed in the regions of Al Hudaydah, Sana’a, Al-Mukalla and Lahj.

The Fund also trained unemployed youth and working women, as the number of beneficiaries of this program reached 1029, and the training included many areas, including: detailing, sewing, engraving, making incense, perfumes, vegetable production in the greenhouse, upbringing and caring of livestock, food industries, beekeeping and honey production, in addition to training in computer use, mobile maintenance, use of the Internet and photography.

Fouad Taher, deputy director of the Fund in Aden, speaks to Khabar Khair (Only Good News) website, “The activities of the health sector focused on psychological and social support, strengthening the resilience of local communities and their adaptation in light of the difficult conditions the country is going through, by training the youth segment. High school and university graduates were targeted through advertisements and then interviews to ascertain their skills in the field of communication and outreach, and they were hired”.

Taher added, “We worked in coordination with the Public Works Fund and the Agriculture and Social Fund for Development. As for the rest of the organizations that we work with, we find that their goals sometimes do not have a strategy like the one we have, so we try to work on converging goals in order to do a good job”.

For his part, the consultant at the Fund, Mustafa Al-Kasadi, told “Khabar Khair” (Only Good News) website, “The fund is currently targeting developmental projects. There is no longer an opportunity for us to support construction projects, and we suffer from poverty and famine. We need projects that develop and train the individual to face the poverty and the high cost in which we live”.

Regarding reconstruction projects in Aden, Taher denied adopting any provision for the reconstruction of Aden.

As for Abdelhaq Mohsen, the monitoring and evaluation officer of projects, he says, “Monitoring and evaluating is one of the Fund’s basic units that has a role in oversight that is fully established, and we come as complements to it as project officers or social and technical officers, we go down and distribute the evaluation form for projects, and there is an application through the Audi-Kia program”.

Mohsen continues his speech, “The monitoring department analyzes it and then presents it to the donor, because he must be aware of his funding, where would he go, to have credibility for the work and prepare the forms in English until they reach the donor, after the donor was the one who visited the field by himself, asking, and evaluating people, but now he is no longer able to go down due to the situation in the country, so he wants to see where his money is going. This is what we present in the forms he receives”.

The Social Fund for Development was established in 1997 with the aim of contributing to poverty alleviation in society, community development, capacity-building, small and micro enterprises and labor-intensive jobs known as (cash for work).