This archive report was first published on 2 September 2021.
When COVID-19 hit Kenya in early 2020, Mwanahamisi's life was turned upside down. Her husband had passed away five years earlier, leaving her to care for their five young children in Laza Makaburini village.
With the little savings her husband left, Mwanahamisi opened a vegetable stall at the Laza market in Hola town, but the business was challenging, and she struggled to make ends meet.
"Since the death of my husband, I have had to work very hard to put food on the table and educate my children," Mwanahamisi said. "I lacked the capital to expand the business. In the end, the returns could not sustain my family."
"Without the business we could not afford a meal," she explains. "We ended up begging for food from our neighbours. I was afraid that my children would starve." Desperate and hungry, Mwanahamisi went to the nearby World Food Programme (WFP) warehouse in search of a job. She was one of 14 female workers hired following the COVID-19 outbreak in Kenya, and she was pleased to discover she was joining a team of women who were breaking gender stereotypes in the traditionally male-dominated environment. At the Hola warehouse, women repackage cereals and pulses, load and offload trucks, and clean. Since the outbreak of COVID-19, WFP has started splitting bags of food into family-size rations at the warehouse ready for distribution. "I never imagined that I could climb on the back of a truck and haul a 50 kg bag by myself," Mwanahamisi said. "I'm not alone. Other women are doing it and so can I. Personally, this job was the turning point I needed in my life and that of my children. It gave us fresh hope and a promise for tomorrow." Mwanahamisi adds that her male colleagues are very supportive. With money from the new job, she has reopened her vegetable stall, selling groceries every evening. WFP is supporting a total of 35,000 food-insecure people in Tana River County, including projects such as irrigation, beekeeping and village savings and loans associations. The assistance includes in-kind food, nutrition supplements to treat moderate acute malnutrition, and support for vulnerable families across the county.
