American Refugee Council offers small loans to refugees

More than 70 percent of over 2,500 small loans given out in Sierra Leone by the American Refugee Council (ARC) this year, went to former refuges in Guinea and Liberia who recently returned home to Kambia and Port Loko districts in the north, Kenema in the east, and Pujehun district in the South.

Loan beneficiaries receive training in business management and develop entrepreneurial skills to rebuild war-torn areas in the country, an ARC statement said. Many of the clients are women including spouses of ex-combatants have gone through the Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR) programme.

In Kenema, ARC has developed a project in collaboration with the DDR programme for 300 former fighters in which the NGO offers them training in carpentry and masonry. It also trains them in small engine repair at Nongowa Chiefdom, and agriculture and rural construction skills at Kandu Leppiama Chiefdom.

"The loans have been used to start or expand a wide range of businesses, including productive activities (such as soap making), service activities (tyre repair, hairdressing) and retail (dry-goods, and agricultural products)," ARC Country Director Martha Saldinger said.

ARC has also launched an HIV/AIDS prevention program targeting the military, women and adolescents following findings of a baseline survey conducted among 940 people in Port Loko in March 2001. It found that only six percent of female youths were able to correctly cite three routes of transmission while only five percent were able to describe ways of avoiding AIDS. While 60 percent of the military had used a condom, only one-fourth of the youths had.

"ARC will be able to link its microcredit and AIDS prevention programmes," the statement said.

The NGO, who works with local organisations to provide micro-credit and skills training, is supported by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and other partners, including the U.S. State Department.