Sewing gowns for the courtroom: The Story of Fatouma Nasser

30 January 2019: Obock, Djibouti. Two young girls of about six years run into the room wearing school uniforms. They pause for a moment, eyeing (us) the visiting strangers, then with a mischievous grin climb into the chair and start running the sewing machine on the table. Fatouma gently chides them away  and continues telling us her story.

Fatouma is one   of UNICEF’s many adolescent success stories in the Markazi camp, situated in the cool coastal town of Obock in the north region of Djibouti. Once vulnerable and impoverished, she is building her skills set inside the Child friendly space through the child protection programme being implemented by the Lutheran World Federation which is a key UNICEF implementing partner. Fatouma is a 14 years old Yemenis girl and currently enrolled at theearby school doing grade four, she is the last born in a family of 2 girls her elder sister being 16 years old. She is part of the first group of Yemenis to come to Djibouti in 2015 and since then her family has blended in well with the local community in Obock but the nostalgia of Yemen haunts her daily.

Fatouma feels right at home in Obock, which is just 90 kilometers from Yemen. The Markazi shelter situated in the heart of Obock hosts a child friendly space where children and adolescents meet to socialize, it has not only given Fatouma a taste of Yemeni nostalgia, it has brought together the community of Yemen as depicted by Fatouma embroidery on her dresses. She misses her friends some who are now in various refugee shelters across Djibouti like Ali  Addeh and Holl-Holl in the south region of Ali Sabieh. She finds much comfort in sewing dresses when she comes back from school. The sewing project compliments some of her extra-curricular activities outside school. Her favorite subjects are Arabic, French Language, Science and Accounts.

For every child, opportunity

As the conversation centers on Fatouma aspirations, her Life Skills teacher gets into the room and Fatouma stands to offer her a seat and introduce her to our visiting team. She tells us that she owes her all the credit for being able to learn to sew dresses within a very limited space of time. Fatouma tells us if UNICEF could help her achieve her dream of being a lawyer one day, she would love to sew court gowns as part of her income generating project, she is not sure of how long she will be in the refugee camp. Its intriguing how such a young mind is already planning and tapping into the future, inside this overwhelming despair Fatouma’s quest to be a lawyer is a story of a young girl with cut-edge sewing skills

The conversation shifts to Fatouma’s teacher to understand Fatouma’s motivation and performance in the Life Skills programme, she tells us that her passion and devotion to sewing has aided her to learn and grasp many sewing concepts in less than a month. She also laments the shortage of sewing machines in the shelters, to the extent that they had to cut lessons for other beneficiaries to ensure that every girl in the camp acquires the basic skillset. Fatouma joins us clad with some dresses in her hand, she lifts them to show us her work. Her entrepreneurial spirit is driven by her desire to support her mother Nasera Zied Ali who works as a general help at the local clinic in Obock.

UNICEF is assisting the Lutheran World Federation to train over 60 adolescents and young people to thrive and not just survive by equipping them with employability and self-help skills enabling them to integrate with the local community in Djibouti. The Lutheran World Federation implores UNICEF to continue supporting girls like Fatouma who lack exposure to the ‘real world’ including access to ‘real’ labor markets, which hinders the adolescent the opportunity to get to know the skills and trades that may be in demand on the labor market.