These are some photos of the body lotion training that I observed on Monday at Gihembe Camp. Ever since I did business training there last year we have been conducting skills training workshops to give the participants in the Income Generation Program the opportunity to learn how to manufacture products that they can sell in the camp and in local markets.
The beautiful woman in the blue dress is Christine Tchenah, the wife of our Camp Manager, who came all the way from her home in Benin to volunteer as a skills trainer with our program. She is also teaching the refugees how to make soap and to weave shopping bags out of nylon thread.
Making body lotion is easy if you can avoid accidents involving hot fires, boiling oil, and the small children who are inevitably underfoot in any gathering of refugee women. I’m happy to report that our training was accident free and that everyone walked away with a small container of body lotion that had been made in front of their eyes. The key ingredients are vegetable oil, candles and scent, and the only equipment required is a pot, a big wooden spoon, and some containers to hold the lotion when it is finished.
The next step for this group will be a business training session where we will attach costs to the ingredients, talk about the selling price in the market, and help the refugees to figure out how to make and use the profits from their enterprise.
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