Before the conflict, Kisanet was a small business owner in her hometown of Humera, in northwestern Tigray. She ran a modest restaurant, serving food, coffee and drinks, earning enoughto sustain herself and to plan ahead. “I was not thinking about what to eat every day,” she recalls. “I was thinking about how to improve my life and save for the future.”
That life ended abruptly when the conflict broke out. Pregnant with her first child, Kisanet fled amid gunfire and chaos, losing many people close to her along the way. Displaced for nearly five years, she eventually settled in Sebacare 4 Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) Camp, on the outskirts of Mekelle, where she now lives in a small tent with her sister, brother, and two young children. With her husband lost during the war and her parents no longer alive, the responsibility of caring for her younger siblings also fell on her shoulders.
Since 2024, humanitarian assistance in Sebacare has sharply declined. Food distributions and basic services have largely ceased, leaving families to fend for themselves for more than a year. Daily life has become a constant struggle for survival, marked by uncertainty, shortages and impossible choices. Some nights, Kisanet chooses not to eat so her children can have food in the morning. “If I eat dinner,” she says quietly, “there is nothing left for breakfast for my children.”
It was at this lowest point that Kisanet learned and enrolled on a livelihood training programme implemented by Maedot, with the support of UNFPA. For the first time in years, she began to imagine a future shaped not only by survival, but by choice.
Restoring livelihoods, rebuilding resilience
Kisanet is now one of 18 women receiving 30 days of intensive hairdressing training at Maedot Training Centre, supported by UNFPA. The programme supports women who are socially and economically vulnerable, including internally displaced women and members of host communities, with a particular focus on survivors of gender-based violence. Beyond technical skills, the training offers women a pathway to regain income, dignity, and independence.
Upon completion, each participant receives a start-up kit valued at 65,000 ETB, enabling them to launch a small business either individually or in groups of three. Group-based businesses strengthen peer support, help share costs, and make it easier to access government micro-loans, an important step towards longer-term economic stability.
Since its establishment in August 2024, Maedot Training Centre has already trained 170 women and men at that specific center - part of the 468 trained across the region - in seven market-relevant skills, including hairdressing, carpentry, electrical installation, bakery and hotel management, supplementary food production, cement block production and barbering. New skills, such as tailoring and computer training are planned to be added soon to respond to local market demands.
For UNFPA, livelihood support is not a stand-alone intervention. It is part of a broader, survivor-centred response that moves people from aid to agency, strengthens economic resilience, reduces stigma, and helps break cycles of violence by restoring dignity, income and belonging in post-conflict Tigray.
Looking ahead: Kisanet’s dreams
With new skills and a plan taking shape, Kisanet is already looking ahead, towards a future where hunger no longer shapes her daily decisions. She chose hairdressing deliberately, based on her own assessment of the surrounding markets and the steady demand for services, especially if they expand to include makeup and nail care. Together with two other women, she plans to open a small salon outside the camp, where electricity and water are available. “Working as a group gives us strength,” she says. “We learn from each other, and we don’t feel alone.”
Her dreams extend beyond income. Kisanet hopes to provide stability for her children and younger siblings, leaving behind the days of skipped meals, and one day return safely to Humera. In the longer term, she imagines owning a larger salon; “not only hair, but makeup, nails, everything.”
“I don’t want my children to grow up remembering hunger,” she says. “If my struggle today gives them a better tomorrow, then it is worth it.”
In 2025, UNFPA’s livelihood programming supported 11,893 women like Kisanet through integrated approaches that combine skills training, start-up capital, psychosocial support, and links to sexual and reproductive health and GBV services. Sustained investment in these programmes is essential to help communities move beyond emergency response towards recovery, peacebuilding and long-term development.
By investing in women’s livelihoods, pathways open from survival to stability. With adequate resources, initiatives like Maedot can expand their reach, restore hope to hundreds more women each year, and ensure that dignity, resilience and choice replace dependence and uncertainty in post-conflict Tigray.
