Hamra

A Syrian refugee and a woman with a large family and many mouths to feed, Hamra’s persistence and will were able to move her and her family from depending on donations and charity to becoming productive business owners.

She was able to replace the labels of “woman” and “refugee” with “productive entrepreneur” by starting a farming and livestock project that improved the family’s financial and social situation.

Due to the equal-opportunity and safe investment environment that Jordan harbors, the Syrian refugee family could live a decent life once again after they fled was in their country in 2011.

Hamra, known as Om Mohammed, started the first chapter in the story of success when she and her family of 6 fled for their lives to Jordan, leaving everything they owned back home in Hamah, Syria.

They settled in Al-Mafraq, north of Jordan, to live a life of uncertainty and in poor conditions, with very little money from donations and food parcels that barely covered their basic need.

When the 60-year old woman saw her sons and daughters, their spouses and her grandchildren existing on the margin of life and barely living, it pushed her to think of a solution.

Om Mohammed saw an opportunity in the large number of her family and decided to employ their different skills and abilities in farming, but now that she found the human capital, she came face to face with a great challenge; the lack of money.

But the entrepreneur had faith, strong will and persistence that kept her from giving up, which led her to MFW, and in 2017, Om Mohammed took her first “Tadamon” loan of JOD 800, which was the seed of her fruitful agricultural project.

To plant the seed and start the project, she moved with her family from Al-Mafraq to Al-Jofeh in Southern Shouneh and rented a farming land to live and work at. She started seeing more of the light behind the silver lining when they started eating from what the farms produced.

Om Mohammed’s ambition didn’t stop there; she took another loan from MFW for JOD 800 and expanded the project by buying a tractor and livestock to raise and produce dairy products and meat to feed the family and trade.

Cleverly, the income they made was partially reinvested in diversifying the products and increasing the number of livestock on the farm, which improved the family’s situation. Om Mohammed expressed her gratitude for MFW’s support and its role in her life-changing journey.