In Jordan, UNHCR with partners, provides training and skill-building opportunities to refugees with the intention of increasing their technical skills and supporting them to develop innovative and sustainable solutions to climate change and food security. This is especially important for female-headed households as it increases their employability.

UNHCR, together with partners, also provides grants for refugees like Fatima so they can start businesses. Beneficiaries also receive training on water-saving farming methods. Fatima came to Jordan with agricultural experience from Syria. She needed a way to earn a living for her family and happened to live next door to Saja, a Jordanian, who owns a small piece of land. The grant they received allowed them to build a greenhouse on Saja’s land and start hydroponic farming, an agricultural method which saves water. They then sell the fruit and vegetables they grew. Fatima can now buy food for her family and pay rent.

In the Kutupalong camp in Cox’s Bazar District, there is a factory managed by a UNHCR partner producing ‘jute,’ an environmentally friendly, locally grown fiber. UNHCR provides women in the camp with the opportunity to produce bags, accessories, and other products with this material, so they develop their skills and earn a living.

Over 2,000 women and girls have participated in skills and empowerment programmes like this in Cox’s Bazar, so they can become self-reliant and contribute to their community. For women like Sanowara, who used to be a tailor in Myanmar, this has offered her and her family the ability to afford clothes, footwear, and a more varied diet.

Almost half of all school-aged refugees in Kenya are out of education and the level of enrolment decreases with progression through the education system. Globally, as well as in Kenya, refugee girls are less likely to be enrolled in school than their male counterparts.

In Kakuma camp and Kalobeyei settlement, UNHCR works with partners to set up school clubs, provide remedial and catch-up lessons to girls in primary and secondary school. Primary education is freely available in the camps, and there are two girls’ boarding schools. Over 30,000 girls have been enrolled in pre-primary, primary and secondary schools.

In Cameroon, UNHCR with partners, provides vocational training to refugee women who have been unable to receive a formal education. This training includes sewing, tailoring, and craft-making. Zeinabou, from the Central African Republic, lived in her village of Bangui until 2014.

Lootings, beheadings, and rapes forced her to flee until she reached Cameroon’s capital of Yaounde, where she was sheltered by her friend, a nun who taught her crafting skills. She has turned her skill into a business and helps other displaced women as they make products they can sell together. All these women are beneficiaries of the training provided, and as a result, they can cover their own basic needs. They use the money to buy the resources necessary to make bags and accessories to sell. 

In DR Congo, UNHCR works with partners to provide psychosocial support to survivors of violence, but also to further build capacity on psychological first aid for survivors of gender-based violence. This includes physical violence such as rape, but also psychological violence and forced marriage. Survivors are also referred to psychological, medical and legal facilities. UNHCR has also organized training sessions on the prevention of sexual abuse with traditional leaders and authorities in DR Congo.