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<\/a>A participant in a \u2018graduation programme\u2019 that is helping refugee families to become self-sustaining farmers in Meheba camp, Furaha says that she worked as a day-labourer work in the area before she joined the Self Help Africa project. Now, she has received training, seeds and a small number of animals that she is rearing to both breed and sell.<\/p>\n\u201cFor the first time, I have my own farm,\u201d she says. \u201cI have planted groundnuts on a small plot, and am also keeping sheeps, goats and chickens that I will trade.\u201d<\/p>\n
Furaha says that she knew nothing about farming until recently. \u201cI was a kid when I ran away. I lost contact with everyone, and believed that all of my family were gone,\u201d she recalls.<\/p>\n
Furaha describes her hand-to-mouth life as a refugee in fearful terms, recounts how her nomadic existence took her to Uvira in the far east of Democratic Republic of Congo, how she was again the victim of an ethnic attack, was raped by rebel warlords, and left pregnant. She lives today with her son, Prince, now aged five.<\/p>\n
Taken into care as a vulnerable refugee, she was brought two years ago by UNHCR officials from Uvira over the border to Meheba camp in Zambia, where she joined more than 15,000 displaced people in one of Africa\u2019s oldest refugee camps.<\/p>\n