Needle and Thread

The most important participations of women especially girls in our village are collecting water, firewood and shepherding. They consume around seven hours of their day performing these tasks apart from cleaning, washing and looking after to their younger brothers and sisters.

Very few attend the school due to different factors such as distance, no female teacher, financial incapacity, and education is less valuable.



The girls mostly in rural and mountainous area set their mind of getting married. They are dreaming of an extra ordinary wedding party, brilliant wedding gown and shining gold for their accessories.

For almost a decade our dedicated Sewing Class Trainer Dina Ismail reaches out many young women and girls especially those with disability to learn basic sewing. Gradually our sewing class empowered numbers of women to learn skills, be productive and self reliant. ADRA Hais Sewing class created mindshift to our girls, now our young women become interested of joining and completing sewing class and to attend to their graduation party.

This year, we have 24 trainees who completed the 8months training on sewing skills. The graduation party was held last June 9,2009. This was attended by different key leaders of Hais City. We have complete attendance from Hais City Council, the head of Hais Hospital; our Imams and Sheik.



ADRA Yemen Country Director Mr. Nagi Khalil and our new Programme Director Ms. Mirriam Watt graced the occasion and supported Hais team to make this event a success. The graduates received gifts from ADRA Yemen like pens and paper printed with ADRA Yemen logo.

Out of 24 graduates, there are four females who received SED Loan in the forms of sewing machine. This is to start their business in sewing Abaya and other traditional clothing. Borrowers of sewing machine has to pay their loan for 8 months without interest and the monthly payment will be 3,000.ooYR (15.00USD). This experience created an impact that emancipate many women from traditional way of life like getting married, giving birth, and attending to their daily tasks.

Fatima Shobel is an example, she is deaf and mute; she completed her sewing class last year 2007. Since then she is assisting Dina in her class and in spite of her impairments she can transfer her skills to other women. She has been an inspiration to many young women with or without disability. Fatima does not stop there she also attended and completed our sign language training. Her confidence and smartness increases since she can communicate well through lips reading, body and sign language and finger spelling. Indeed ADRA works and reaches the most marginalized in YEMEN be it in the middle of the desert and or in the mountain. Thanks to ADRA for using us, the Hais Team as an instrument of fruitful changes to many girls and women here in Hais…..

A Boy with five names and bladder stone

Jonh F. Kennedy the 35^th US President quoted that “Children are the world’s most valuable resource and best hope for the future” thus we have to provide them with all the love, care and protection they needed. KASSIM AMIN KASSIM ALI HAMANH, a five year old boy residing in our village here in Hais City, had blurred future due to his pain.

Kassim is the youngest of 8 siblings, for five years he is suffering from pain and makes it difficult for him to move. He cannot stand alone and cries whenever urinating.

His father with the same name, Kassim, brought his son to ADRA Hais office for help. Our team decided to refer him to AL – Aquasa Hospital in Hodeida for diagnosis, laboratory test, X-ray and Ultrasound. The result showed that this boy has single large bladder stone which is 20mm and in need of cystolithotomy to remove it. This procedure will cost 50,000YR (250.00USD) excluding post surgery medication, hospital bills and Doctor’s fees.

Being the sole breadwinner of the family, Kassim (the father) was helpless to have the surgery for his son. His income from selling vegetables in the market is not enough to sustain the needs of his family. He said, they have to tighten their belts to make their both ends meet. He relies to Allah and from the intervention of ADRA.

The five years suffering came to an end on May 25,2009. Our CBR Coordinator, Abdullah assisted the father and son “Kassim” in Al-Aquasa Hospital for surgery. They spent two days and one night in the hospital;on the third day the boy walked in the office carrying small bottle with his stone inside.

The father and son are very grateful to ADRA and to Allah for this blessing.

“Sa’aadati kaamilat” My happiness is complete says the boy Kassim. His smile radiate all the possibility of having brighter future for him and his family. Thanks to ADRA....

“Can’t Cry Hard Enough”

The United Nation World Food Program report states that about 53% of Yemeni children (24,000) under the age of five are suffering from malnutrition and our village of Hais cannot escape this harsh reality. It is almost a decade now that we have served the Hais community and with those years we have seen that indeed malnutrition is a serious problem. It also contributes to the continuous occurrence of disability, along with other factors such as road/traffic accidents, poor medical practices, hereditary issues, iodine and Vitamin A deficiency, infectious diseases and non infectious diseases; congenital diseases and others.

Hunger and malnutrition, as well as disability and poverty are inextricably linked. Fifty percent of disability is preventable and 20% of impairments are caused by malnutrition. The Hais Government Hospital documented 275 case of malnourished children in Hais City and the causes are deeply rooted. Even cases of mothers and their unborn foetus are malnourished due to cultural problems. Chewing of “Kat” continues to be a problem. It is very common in our village of Hais that men, women and even children chew Kat, a leaf from the Catha Edulis tree with an amphetamine effect that is followed by a quiet mood. Kat severely reduces the appetite of women and leaves pregnant mothers without food for considerable times, causing malnutrition for both mother and unborn infant. Chronic shortfalls in access to foods are also a serious issue that leads many rural Yemeni to skip their meals and other vitals needs such health and education. The women seem to use the chewing of Kat as a coping mechanism and this contributes to the vicious cycle of poverty.

Our ADRA team in Hais initiates supplemental feeding activity to address malnutrition and at the same time to reduce disability prevalence in Hais. In coordination with the Hais Government Hospital we came up with a priority list of beneficiaries. With the use of improvise materials we measure the height and weight of our beneficiaries. As you can see, a boy can’t cry hard enough for some reasons, maybe he starving, ill or afraid of our weigh scale. We also measure height using the tape measure from our sewing class and foot rule from our weaving class. Our CBR worker has prepared Improvised Gerber baby food which we called “Tagdiah”. We combine wheat, rice, corn, sugar, (Habat Alsouda and Adas local Yemeni seeds) grind it together, dry, then boil and it turns out to be delicious and the best baby food I have tried. It takes two days to prepare the mixture and the feeding day falls every Wednesday. Beneficiaries usually have two packs of ready mixture to take home for consumption.