Stories from Women
Igbala's Story
Milka's Story
Zejneba's Story
Razija's Story
Igbala's Story
Igbala Gabela is 40 years old and lives with her husband and two children in Gorazde. During the war, she and her family lived in eight different places and lost many of their belongings. Her husband was diagnosed with tuberculosis and Igbala was forced to support her family by sewing. Igbala was immediately interested when her friend told her about Women for Women International's program. She enrolled in the Bosnian Crochet course, which is a very complicated form of crochet and only the most talented are able to do well. Igbala used the skills she learned in the crochet course to add intricate and traditional designs to her sewing projects, which helped her attract more clients. She used the confidence she gained to apply for a microcredit loan and to expand her business to support her family. Igbala loves the friendships she made through Women for Women International and still helps other women improve their sewing and embroidery skills.
Milka's Story
Milka Kusmuk is 47 years old and has been a microcredit client for three years. She lives with her husband, her three children and her parents outside of Sarajevo on a small farm. When Milka received her first microcredit loan, she began growing raspberries on her farm to supplement the income her family was earning from selling dairy products and vegetables. Now her family's main source of income is from her raspberry business. Over the past three years, Milka's business has grown rapidly and now she wants to expand her business to grow blackberries as well. In addition to earning enough income to support her family of 7, she also employs local citizens during the busy season. Milka has a contract with the largest bakery in Bosnia, and has become Chief of her microcredit center and advises other women who want to start a business.
Zejneba's Story
“In one night entire families from my village – fathers, sons, husbands, brothers –disappeared. Women were dying of sadness and helplessness,” recalls Zejneba, a 42 year-old mother of two from Bratunac, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Her husband’s mother was murdered in front of her eyes. She and her husband took their children and ran. When the children could no longer walk, they carried them. Zejneba has been a microcredit client since 1997, when the program was introduced in Bosnia. With a loan from Women for Women International, Zejneba bought a cow, then land and ultimately established a dairy products business that supports the whole family. “When I finish my work late at night, I thank God for giving me an opportunity to survive the horror and for helping me find women who give me self-confidence,” she says. Today she is continuing her dairy business and is growing and selling potatoes.
Razija's Story
Women from the village Vranduk became leaders in their community
Participants of the Women for Women International program from the village Vranduk, Bosnia, completed their program in January of this year. They have become proud and strong women who are actively involved in social, economical and political events in their village and local community.
Women for Women International opened a center in Vranduk with the intention to bring hope together with the financial help to the “forgotten women” who had many worries on how to feed and educate their children, rebuild their homes, pay the bills, earn money for life’s expenses. They lived in a place where nothing was being done to improve the situation and it seems like there were no chances of things ever getting better. But still these women had to be strong, confident and become the backbone of the family. She needed to provide a sanctuary of love and belonging.
This is the reason why the program Women for Women International has been openly accepted by the women in Vranduk. They felt that it was a place where they will, at least for a moment, get away from the harsh day to day life. It was also a place where they would rebuild their strength, where someone would listen to what they had to say, where they could share their sorrow and their fears and where they would gather their strength and optimism.
It started at the graduation ceremony when Merhunisa said, “When you are a housewife, living in a remote place, without all the things that are available to women in the cities, it is like a reward when you get finally get them, a reward for all the hard work that we do for the ones we love, the ones that need us, but often don’t appreciate us. For us it was a place where every day a new window to the world was opened, a window that brought light to our lives. Each one of us has changed something for the better in her life. To some of us vocational skills training has helped start our own business, like tailoring, handcrafts, setting up a greenhouse, buying a cow. We also were eligible to take a micro credit loan and to engage or expand our businesses that enabled us to involve our family members. For most of us the donation money was the first regular and steady money we received. I myself have become stronger and more decisive and self confident. Many other women have also rebuilt their self-confidence and self-respect, many of them felt self-confidence and self-respect for the first time in their lives. We have become stronger and more decisive and ready to actively participate where we have never participated before. The program has enlightened me.”
When the program ended, the women from Vranduk continued to meet regularly and talked to women whose place was traditionally in the house. They invited them to meetings, talked about their problems and invited them to participate in the program. At first, there was a lot of resistance and mistrust, especially from men. But this did not discourage the women. They were persistent and didn’t want to give up. Guided by this drive and passion, they were able to encourage 100 more women from their village to participate in the Women for Women International program. The local government gave them a public social building that has been reconstructed and rebuilt for their use as well a regular bus line from the city.
“Step by step, we have become a force that has been recognized. It wasn’t easy, once we were taken seriously, other times we were rejected directly, but we never gave up. It was hard because all of them looked at us with a great distrust. They persistently wondered what we women want, and we explained that we don’t want to be locked away in our houses; we want to work and live of our work. We tried to explain how to use our beautiful nature, our village and our 600 years old fort for the development of tourism. We explained that with a small amount of money the public social building can be renovated and welcome guests and tourists, prepare food, make exhibitions of our handcrafts and organize different events there. Finally we established our association. Today everyone in our local community knows of the Association that we named “Vranduk’s Cherry” because cherry is grown very successfully in Vranduk.” said Hedija.
The Association was entrusted with organizing of the annual traditional event “Vranduk’s Cherry 2008”. Their influence on the community and their knowledge from our program was becoming apparent by everyone. During the festival, their stands with traditional food and handcrafts were distinctive and surrounded with people all the time, even though they had no leaflets or promotional materials to give out. Their approach and dedication to every visitor was enough. The event gathered 3,000 visitors! It was the most organized and most attended festival thus far. The representatives of the highest authorities from Zenica-Doboj Canton attended the event as well as other numerous guests and the media.
“Up to now, this event has always been organized by men. Through the program Women for Women International we have realized that women could organize it much better and that was what we did, with the support of the local government and the tourist office. They asked to make a schedule for the event and that’s what we did. Then we had to find the money. We got some of the money from the Municipality Zenica, some from the local companies that we turned to.” said Hedija.
Five buses full of participants from our program in other municipalities have come to support women from Vranduk. It was evident how they were looking forward to seeing each other even though they have never met before. It was really impressive to see them embrace one another.
“I embraced Hedija in the name of all of us women from Budoželje and I hope you know how important it is to meet women who are thanks to the program Women for Women International, trying to improve their life and the lives of their families, just as we do. Women for Women International is responsible for establishing a great number of local women associations like this one in Bosnia and Herzegovina, because our association was established as a result of their work and constant support even in our current activities” said Fatima.
“This is a day to remember, a day when our women showed the whole community how capable they are if only given a chance. I trusted your organization because I saw for myself how much the program helped my wife to make changes on her and on our family. I respect and appreciate her more now. Today I am very proud of her.” said Merhunisa’s husband.
Vranduk also looked very different that day. You could feel the positive atmosphere everywhere. Everyone congratulated these brave and hardworking women, inquired about their future plans, showed will and intention to help them.
“Our plans for this summer are to open a traditional Bosnian restaurant in the public social building where Bosnian specialties will be served, to set up a “Bosnian room” where we will offer tourists our handcrafts, souvenirs and other artifacts. We are preparing for the tourist to come and are hoping to earn some money.” said Hedija - the leader of the Vranduk’s Cherry Association.
