Refugee Affairs

Vision and Systems Change

Trickle Up is advancing the economic and social well-being of people affected by displacement living in extreme poverty by raising awareness, building evidence, and providing high quality technical assistance to implementing partners. Trickle Up’s work with refugees informs regional teams in the Americas, Africa and Asia on how to work with displaced people and provide technical assistance to implementing partners.

Adapting programs for Displaced People

The Refugee Affairs team is increasing other regions’ awareness of displaced people within all Trickle Up countries of operation, sensitizing us to the characteristics and needs of these populations, and incorporating such populations into the strategic priorities of each regional office.

Creating technical assistance structure

The Refugee Affairs team has systematized learnings from their work as a Technical Assistance provider to partners and governments, which has in turn strengthened the knowledge base for other Trickle Up regions providing similar technical assistance services.

The Refugee Affairs team draws on lessons from the regional teams, including selection procedures, poverty segmentation, coaching, savings groups, and monitoring and evaluation systems.

7
COUNTRIES

1914
PARTICIPANTS

Project Highlight:

UNHCR

Since November 2016, Trickle Up has been building UNHCR’s capacity to deliver the Graduation Approach to Persons of Concern (PoCs) in two Zambian settlements, Mayukwayukwa and Meheba. By providing Technical Assistance for the design and pilot of Graduation to UNHCR and its implementing partner, Self-Help Africa, Trickle Up’s Refugee Affairs team has garnered learnings essential for the future scale up of the project throughout Zambia. With the current pilot in Meheba coming to an end in April 2019, the results among the Zambian, Congolese, Burundian, Somali, and Rwandan participants are promising.

FOOD SECURITY
85.7%
of participants in the Meheba settlement in Zambia have at least two meals a day (up from one meal a day).

SAVINGS
$3.4K
was saved by participants with their savings groups in the Meheba settlement in Zambia.

INCOME
$14.2K
in assets were earned by 31 participants rearing livestock in the Meheba settlement.

LIVING STANDARDS
77.8%
of participants of participants in the Meheba settlement in Zambia have reported an overall improvement in living standards.

“I am a changed one. I wasn’t a business woman. Now I’m a confident market woman.”
– Marie, Participant from Meheda Settlement, Zambia

“I am a changed one. I wasn’t a business woman. Now I’m a confident market woman.”
– Marie, Participant from Meheda Settlement, Zambia

Marie and her family have lived in displacement for 36 years, arriving in Meheba settlement in 1993. They struggled to make ends meet working odd jobs. On the toughest days, they could not afford to eat even one meal a day. Now, thanks to the business training she received through Graduation, Marie has been running a stall in the market of the settlement for almost a year. Today, her family eats at least two nutrional meals a day.

Read Marie's Story

“A great coach must show respect.”
– Aude, Graduation Coach, Meheba settlement, Zambia

Aude’s family fled Burundi when she was only 8 months old. Now 23-years-old, she has spent most of her life in displacement and graduated high school in the Meheba settlement in Zambia. Receiving a work permit in Zambia as a refugee is a right restricted only to those with specialized degrees, such as doctors and lawyers. However, Aude joined the Graduation pilot program as one of the first six coaches supporting her participants on the path towards self-sufficiency and independence.

Read Aude's Story

“A great coach must show respect.”
– Aude, Graduation Coach, Meheba settlement, Zambia

Even beyond their savings group, the sense of solidarity expands to a participant’s daily life.

Participant Story

Marie

"I wasn’t a business woman. Now I’m a confident market woman," Marie* announces as she counts money and organizes her dried fish in neat piles. Originally from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Marie and her family are refugees who have lived in displacement for 36 years. In 1993, the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) resettled them to Meheba, a settlement in the northwestern province of Zambia, 430km from the capital Lusaka and 41km from the border of DRC.

When she first arrived, Marie’s family received a variety of aid for a year and half: food items, agricultural tools, 3 hectares of land, a water hose, and a tent. With what little they had, her family built their own home from sand blocks traditionally collected from anthills. Soon afterwards, they struggled to make ends meet from the odd jobs they took, the mandazi (fritters) they occasionally sold, and the few plants they grew – like many Congolese refugees, Marie’s family had never farmed before. On the toughest days, they could not afford to eat even one meal a day.

As participant in a Graduation pilot program in Meheba, Marie received a variety of trainings and expanded her support mechanisms to set her family on a path towards sustainable and self-reliant livelihoods.

Thanks to the business training she received through Graduation, Marie has been running her stall in the market in the Meheba settlement for almost a year. On Monday mornings, she arrives early to meet the local supplier and purchase the best quality products. When she has enough money, she buys a goat as a collateral that she can quickly sell off when needed.

Trying to recount what life was like for her family before Graduation, Marie stares into the distance as if it were a different lifetime. Today, her family eats at least twice a day, and their meals include more nutritional items than a typical meal of a protein and nshima (a maize based porridge served in lumps and eaten with hands). This is because her Graduation programming has also included several trainings around the importance of consuming fruits and vegetables.

In addition to these trainings, Marie, who is illiterate, has learned how to save. Even before she started generating an income, she was saving with a group of other refugees who are participating in Graduation as well. These savings can be used to expand her business, support her family, or cover her expenses in the case of a few bad days at the market.

"If you’re sick and fail to sell at the market, you will face a challenge to save," Marie explains. Keeping that in mind, her savings group has a social fund, which acts as a grant giver to any participant who faces an urgent hardship such as sickness or a family death.

"We are now a community," she adds. Even beyond their savings group, the sense of solidarity expands to a participant’s daily life. The hopelessness around loneliness has faded. “When you have nothing and are feeling hopeless, you feel gratitude for anything a neighbor gives you,” Marie continues, as she describes her newfound friendship with a neighbor of different nationality in her block.

"I am a changed one," she concludes, as she starts tidying up her stand in the market. Her face shifts from a soft smile to a focused gaze. Now more than ever, Marie understands that time is money.

*name changed to protect confidentiality

Aude adapts her sessions around a participant’s needs and schedule to support their path towards self-sufficiency and independence.

Coach Story

Aude

Aude* wraps her colorful chitenge around her waist, a traditional garment often worn by women, and heads off into block D to visit her participants for the day. Aude is a coach in the Meheba settlement in Zambia’s North-Western province, which spans 278 miles—about the same size as Singapore—and hosts over 47,000 displaced peoples. Aude’s family fled Burundi when she was only 8 months old. Now 23-years-old, she has spent most of her life in displacement. Before arriving to Meheba in 2001, she and her parents lived in Tanzania, where she felt more constricted and less free to move.

Being a coach is Aude’s first job since graduating high school in 2016. She is the only woman among the settlement’s six coaches. Her background has blessed her with the knowledge of four languages: Kirundi (her native tongue), Swahili (what the majority of people in the settlement speak), English (the language of her schooling), and Nyanja (the language her Zambian teachers spoke). Putting her language skills to use, she coaches ten Graduation participants, who are a mix of Burundian and Congolese refugees.

"A great coach must show respect," Aude affirms. In addition, coaches must always have a plan and be honest with participants. Striving to be the best coach she can, she strives to meet these ideals. She deeply attentive to her participants and diligently takes notes during her coaching sessions in order to keep track of all necessary details week to week.

Aude understands that, while she and her participants are committed to building a sustainable livelihood together, everyday life can sometimes get in the way. "Sometimes, kids are sick; parents are sick. They will easily tell you they are not okay. You can’t start to coach. You have to help make sure they’re okay. Sometimes, I go with them to the clinic to make sure they are okay." Often, Aude adapts her sessions around a participant’s needs and schedule. In her opinion, it’s one of the best ways that she can support her participants on the path towards self-sufficiency and independence.

*name changed to protect confidentiality

"I've been very happy with my original seven colonies. Now I want to grow, and have even more."

Participant Story

Wilma Teresa Chi Santiago

Wilma Santiago and her family struggled to make ends meet. She was unable to pay for her son’s medical expenses and maintain their home and food security. As a part of the Maya Yucateco indigenous group, Wilma and her community have faced discrimination, illiteracy, and barriers to education for generations. Through financial help from Trickle Up, entrepreneurial coaching, and support from the members of her savings group, Wilma drastically changed her family’s future.

After developing a plan with the help of her coach, Wilma used her $774 in seed capital to buy supplies like protective gear, beehive boxes, and smoke canisters. With her seven colonies, she has created a new honey business, Miel Cisteil, which makes her enough money to live without insecurity.

Today, Wilma proudly serves her family three meals a day. She sees the livelihood training she received from her coach as critical to her new business’ success: “I have learned so much about beekeeping. When to feed them, how to keep away the ants that try to eat the hives. I learned how to chase the bees away with smoke, and how to open the hives.”

“I've been very happy with my original seven colonies. Now I want to grow, and have even more,” Wilma says.

Wilma and the other women in her savings group also learned valuable skills like financial planning, saving, and accessing credit. The savings group helps Wilma build a social support system with other indigenous women living in extreme poverty, who often face social exclusion, racism, and a lack of access to basic services.

With her new income and savings totaling $3,321 so far, she has quadrupled her initial investment in just two years. Now Wilma can afford her son’s medical bills, whereas previously her family could not afford healthcare.

In partnership with Ko’ox Taani, a local Mexican NGO who wanted to implement Trickle Up’s Graduation Approach with indigenous families in the Yucat we are able to reach more people than ever. Our pilot project together supported 200 indigenous families living in extreme poverty. Today, we’ve expanded our partnership to reach 3,000 indigenous families in Chiapas and Yucatán, Mexico, with a focus on women and youth.

Wilma continues to be an advocate for mothers like herself who have big dreams for the future of their family. She is an inspiration to her savings group members, her coaches, and to us.

“This is such a big opportunity,” says Wilma. “I will not waste it.”

See Wilma tell her story

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