My name is Emu, I’m 59 years old. My family is poor, my father is not alive, my mother lives with me. When I was in my village, I studied up to 7th grade. My family made me stop class and get married. My husband was a carpenter and we had a daughter. When she was in 7th grade, he died and I got married again when it became hard for me to live alone.
My husband told me life was better in Addis Ababa so we moved here. After living together for more than a year, we divorced because of a disagreement, and I started living with my daughter supporting myself. I sent my daughter to school but she dropped when she was in ninth grade. While she was studying, I got sick and when I stopped working, she dropped out of school and started working to help me. After three months I got better, I started to move around and I went back to work.
I went to visit my mother who was living in the countryside. She cried saying she can’t live apart from me and that she isn’t able to see properly, so we came to Addis Ababa together. At that time, my daughter was 28 years old, and a man she met while working asked for my permission to marry her, and I agreed so they got married. She has two children, they live in a rental house and now she has no job.
I continued my “Tella” business and with the money I saved, I bought land from a farmer for 30,000 Birr. I built eighteen corrugated iron sheets rooms for 80,000 Birr and lived in one of these it for six months, but then the district officials made their rounds, they demolished them saying it was illegally built.
I was upset that my property was destroyed. I run out of money and I was worried about where to go with my weak mother. To add up to that, my ex-husband called me and told me that he has been tested and found out he was HIV positive, and that I should get tested and know my health status. This was in 2009. When I was examined at AlLERT Hospital, I was told that HIV was in my blood and my CD4 was low so medication was started immediately. The anger and frustration of my house breaking down got worse when I heard I had HIV in my blood; I felt like I was going crazy. My safety net money was only 700 Birr, so I couldn’t pay my house rent and I was worried about what I would feed my mother.
One day a woman, who gets support at the MSC told me this. If you are in trouble and worried, go to Medhen Social Center and apply. I applied on 5/2/21 and the MSC assessed my situation and gave us the following supports
700 birr for house rent
200 birr for my elderly mother.
soap, a blanket and bed sheets.
I wanted to start working, so I was offered business skills training and a start-up money of 1,000 Birr.
Since Safety Net was for three years and the time was up, they gave me 21,000 birr to stand on my own. With that I invested on my “Tella” business, now I get from 2,000 to 3,000 birr profit every two weeks. So I am leading my life and happily taking care of my mother.
These are the positive changes I experienced since I joined MSC
I was disheartened by the collapse of my house. When the MSC paid my house rent and I could live in my own house, I started thinking about work. My hope was renewed, I forgot my suffering.
My mind was blown when I found out HIV was in my blood. I was talking to myself, I was forgetting to take my medicine, my CD4 was low. But now my mind is settled and I take my medicine properly.
Since I have taken business skills training, I keep my accounts separate from my expenses and income. But before, I was not aware of my profit and loss.
A woman I know in the house I rented is doing business. Since she is always complaining about failing, I explained to her about the skills that I learnt in my training. When one business fails I tried another. I told her to do something seasonal and now she has started selling apples and she is successful.
I say God saw me, I am very happy. Thank you very much for everything you have done for me.
