SOMALIA: Widowed and Displaced, Women Find Ways to Survive Somali Conflict

Many Somali women have lost their husbands and eldest sons, who either died in the country's conflict or simply left home to emigrate to another country. Women often find themselves alone with several children and relatives to look after - and traditionally, women are not typically the breadwinners of the family.

Many women struggle to provide for the day-to-day needs of their families, but some are also running businesses selling basic commodities.

Others to work as street cleaners in exchange for food, a job with its own risks. In 2008, a roadside bomb killed 21 women who were cleaning rubbish from a southern Mogadishu street. Forty-six were wounded.

In Mogadishu, many internally displaced people live in camps run by Somalis who left their homes. They live in make shift houses constructed from sticks and plastic bags. There is no electricity, limited running water and very poor sanitary conditions.

Those who run the camps are think the situation in the country will not improve anytime in the near future.

In the camps, women collect firewood, do laundry and carry water for people who have a little money to spare.

Life is especially difficult for those who have no work and have to rely on neighbours for support.

"We under going difficulties that we never seen before," says one woman. "We do not have proper shelter to live in or a reliable food supply. So we ask for donations from anyone who can afford to help."

There are a number of aid organisations who do help those in the camps, and a few of the displaced families are fortunate enough to be helped by the local NGOs.

The NGOs give families some money and food, but these are the minority.

Despite the hardships, many displaced women heading households work very hard to provide for their relatives and ensure they get at least one meal a day.

Many of them are grandmothers, who remain the sole caregivers in families. They are often overworked and suffer from nutritional deficiencies, as only on rare occasions do they get sufficient and balanced meals for the whole family. When they do, the children take priority and it is common for mothers to go hungry.

Last week, PAHDA, a non-governmental, community-centered agency, distributed food and other basic items to poor displaced women.

PAHDA operates in southern Somalia and is managed by educated women. Its mandate is to help women who are heads of households.

PADHA spokesperson Ayan Abdullahi Ali explains how the group selects women and their families for the camp.

"We randomly selected these people from the IDPs," Ali says. As well as distributing food and clothes, the charity helped women to set up small businesses to support themselves.

"It was good to help them in the face of the difficulties surrounding these needy people and we are proud of it."

PAHDA did not receive any government funding, Ali stresses.

"We voluntarily decided to help our people, who are desperate in need of aid, so we collected the money and other food items we distributed from our pockets," she says. "It is money we saved from our own transportation money that our parents gave us, and other contributions made by our comrades and students."

Hasno Elmi is one of the widowed women who benefited from the distribution carried out by PAHDA, and says she was very grateful for their help.

"We proud of them, and we ask them to redouble their efforts to help poor and desperate families like us," she says.

Another elderly woman, Hawa Hassan, said she was happy to see Somalia's better educated and wealthier people helping support those worst affected by the violence in the country. Such solidarity is a new development, she says.

But Somalia continues to be a country plagued by extreme poverty, unemployment, gender inequality and violence.

PAHDA is not the only group helping internally displaced people in Somalia, but it is the first organisation founded by women for women, who are desperately in need of aid.